CarDekho - The New Face of Aotomotive Retail
Automotive retail is witnessing a paradigm shift from a product-driven to a customer-centric approach to fulfill the changing expectations of customers who are now designing their decision and experience journey individually from disparate touch points. The increasing adoption of mobile technologies is redefining interaction and communication patterns, influencing customer behavior as a result. According to McKinsey’s Retail Innovation Consumer Survey, 80 percent of new car and almost 100 percent of used car customers now begin their journey online. It clearly indicates that dealers are no longer the primary source of information and it is difficult for them to influence the customer. At the same time, automotive OEMs are on their toes to integrate their various customer touch points and manage those touch points holistically to ensure that they follow potential buyers.CarDekho.com, India’s leading car search site, is helping dealers and OEMs go digital and enabling them to transform their customer experience and marketing strategies for the better. The venture provides a rich array of tech-enabled tools to OEMs and dealers that include apps for dealer sales executives to manage leads, cloud services for tracking sales performance, call tracker solution, digital marketing support, virtual online showroom and outsourced lead management operational process for taking consumers from enquiry to sale. The company works very closely with OEMs and dealers. About eight OEMs and 4600 dealers benefit from its solutions. The company focuses on making systems that are well designed and easy to use, more than just adding new features. The approach has made it win the best website of the year award four times in a row. It has also earned the coveted Top Developer badge by Google Play and was chosen by Apple as one of the seven best apps in India for the year 2014.
CarDekho.com’s parent company GirnarSoft has been backed by Ratan Tata and many other marquee investors like Google Capital, Tybourne Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, HDFC Bank and Times Internet.
On the consumer facing app and sites, the company focuses on the three legs of customer journey - car research and buying, selling the used car, and easing car ownership. “On the research and buying side, we assist the customer in buying a new car by providing rich content like comparison tools, expert reviews, road tests, picture galleries and more than 200 videos of cars. We also facilitate the buying and selling of a used car. During the lifecycle of the ownership of the vehicle, we provide several facilities like insurance, accessories, servicing and roadside assistance for improving the post-sale experience throughout the ownership lifecycle of the vehicle. So, across the new car, used car and car ownership journey of a customer, we are building multiple touch points,” says Umang Kumar, President, CarDekho.com.
Lead Management Redefined
Among the tools for auto businesses is the Lead Management System (LMS) App, a flagship solution provided by CarDekho for the dealers. The software as a service (SaaS) tool is a brainchild of Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder of the company. “While OEMs have a customer relationship management (CRM) tool in place, at the ground level, these softwares are not used. That’s why the dealers were not able to convert the leads into sales. To help dealers derive more value out of the leads they get, we built a simple app-based tool to help the sales executive of a dealership follow his prospect and close the deal,” says Amit.
After the use of this app, the conversion rates went up by four to five times per executive on the leads provided by CarDekho.com. “While the tools made by big companies like SAP are no doubt good but they are not compatible in the Indian context. Those are complex systems and it is difficult for the executives to use them. We did a mapping of all the states of a consumer lifecycle of auto buyers in India.
Accordingly, the LMS app was developed with options for sales executives to schedule home visit, test drive and call back of any potential buyer. It also allows them to set reminders for call or visit to the customer with one touch and has easy swift options for checking the latest price quote and EMI calculation etc. This made the solution simple and easy to use,” explains Amit. The LMS app works in offline mode too. An executive can be on field, do his work while the app keeps recording the data. The moment he comes back to a Wi-Fi zone, it syncs up automatically. The application is equally effective and useful for the managers to track the performance of the executives in real time. They are equipped with an app called ‘Dealer Mart for Managers’ that provides them with a bird’s eye view of the performance of his team and identify the loopholes in the sales process.
Leveraging virtual reality and 3D technology
For the OEMs, CarDekho.com has developed solutions like virtual showroom and digital or mobile brochures. One of the first mobile apps developed by CarDekho.com was Renault KWID App. It has been immensely successful and has crossed around five lakh downloads. CarDekho.com has also developed apps for Honda CB Hornet, Honda Navi, Renault Duster, Volkswagen, Nissan Datsun and others.
The company has leveraged virtual reality and 3D technology to the full potential and has also been a frontrunner in this segment. "Virtual reality solution has three use cases. The first is – when a sales guy goes to a customer’s home, he shows the customer the entire showroom at his house. You can simply wear the headset and you can look around and experience the complete virtual showroom. The second is at the dealership itself. Today, OEMs lack space to display all the models of the car. We have built the 3D models on which one can rotate and check out the car. The third is deployment of these solutions at for example bank branches, airports etc. where a customer can research a vehicle,” says Umang.
CarDekho.com team has made 3D CAD models of the vehicles and has also enabled the user to add accessories and visualize the car clearly. Such models are extremely hard to build as it takes an expert team to build them pixel by pixel. However, once the feature laden model is ready, it almost brings the car to the customer, presenting a 360 degree view of the vehicle.
Another major problem with the automotive retail ecosystem is that every dealer tends to make his own website which is why the websites of dealers of a many OEM brands is not standardized. CarDekho.com provides OEMs a centralized dealer website platform where any dealer can make his own website. The core content about the vehicle remains centrally controlled and the dealers have access to pricing information. The automatic content update pulled directly from huge database of CarDekho.com and innovative features like 360 degree view and one push button for offers help dealers attract customers.
Geared up to transform the car owner ecosystem
In future, CarDekho.com is looking to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers and car manufacturers, dealers and related businesses such that consumers have easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars, but also managing their entire ownership experience, be it accessories, tyres, batteries, insurance or roadside assistance. “We have started websites like Batterydekho.com and Tyredekho.com. We are determined to enable access to information, ability to transact and renew insurance, ability to buy on-road assistance, etc and thus transform the car owner ecosystem,” envisions Umang.
Leveraging virtual reality and 3D technology
For the OEMs, CarDekho.com has developed solutions like virtual showroom and digital or mobile brochures. One of the first mobile apps developed by CarDekho.com was Renault KWID App. It has been immensely successful and has crossed around five lakh downloads. CarDekho.com has also developed apps for Honda CB Hornet, Honda Navi, Renault Duster, Volkswagen, Nissan Datsun and others.
CarDekho.com, India’s leading car search site, is helping dealers and OEMs go digital and enabling them to transform their customer experience and marketing strategies for the better.
The company has leveraged virtual reality and 3D technology to the full potential and has also been a frontrunner in this segment. "Virtual reality solution has three use cases. The first is – when a sales guy goes to a customer’s home, he shows the customer the entire showroom at his house. You can simply wear the headset and you can look around and experience the complete virtual showroom. The second is at the dealership itself. Today, OEMs lack space to display all the models of the car. We have built the 3D models on which one can rotate and check out the car. The third is deployment of these solutions at for example bank branches, airports etc. where a customer can research a vehicle,” says Umang.
CarDekho.com team has made 3D CAD models of the vehicles and has also enabled the user to add accessories and visualize the car clearly. Such models are extremely hard to build as it takes an expert team to build them pixel by pixel. However, once the feature laden model is ready, it almost brings the car to the customer, presenting a 360 degree view of the vehicle.
Another major problem with the automotive retail ecosystem is that every dealer tends to make his own website which is why the websites of dealers of a many OEM brands is not standardized. CarDekho.com provides OEMs a centralized dealer website platform where any dealer can make his own website. The core content about the vehicle remains centrally controlled and the dealers have access to pricing information. The automatic content update pulled directly from huge database of CarDekho.com and innovative features like 360 degree view and one push button for offers help dealers attract customers.
Geared up to transform the car owner ecosystem
In future, CarDekho.com is looking to construct a complete ecosystem for consumers and car manufacturers, dealers and related businesses such that consumers have easy and complete access to not only buying and selling cars, but also managing their entire ownership experience, be it accessories, tyres, batteries, insurance or roadside assistance. “We have started websites like Batterydekho.com and Tyredekho.com. We are determined to enable access to information, ability to transact and renew insurance, ability to buy on-road assistance, etc and thus transform the car owner ecosystem,” envisions Umang.
