AutoGuru revs up customer care with Twilio

Finding a qualified car mechanic and getting repairs is typically a difficult task. AutoGuru in Queensland, Australia set out to change that tedious process by developing an online system that allows car owners to compare personalised repair quotes from more than 1,600 top-rated mechanics.

The company operates a data engine that dynamically calculates the cost of basic, logbook, or repair and inspection service for 97.3 percent of all Australian vehicles. Customers enter their car make and model and request when and where they want to have their vehicle serviced. The site creates a data algorithm with factory scheduled service intervals and repairs options, and queries local mechanics, who provide fixed, upfront pricing based on labor and parts. The car owner can compare mechanics based on their service costs and overall customer ratings. With Twilio-powered communications, AutoGuru then connects owners with mechanics and helps them instantly book the service.

Reducing call center costs

With a large network of user-reviewed repair shops and mobile mechanics, AutoGuru can easily attract customers looking for mechanics to its website. But managing the incoming leads was initially a challenge for its customer service team—until it moved to Twilio.

“When we first implemented our CRM, the existing call center solution couldn’t be integrated. So the sales funnel was disjointed, as we were using two different systems. And chat was a separate silo,” explains Barry Pryce, Chief Technology Officer at AutoGuru. The company only managed to contact 300 to 400 people out of 2,000+ calls made each day by call center agents. And because they had limited information on the customer lead, the conversion rate for bookings was low.

To solve the problem, AutoGuru went into overdrive to improve its call center capabilities and reduce costs. “We wanted to unify the sales lead to customer conversion process into a single channel,” says Pryce. So the company implemented a CRM solution integrated with Twilio Voice and TaskRouter.

“Overnight, Twilio gave us the capability that allowed us to track users and make follow up calls, all integrated with our CRM,” says Pryce. By using Twilio, the company reduced call center costs by more than 50 percent from the previous solution.

Higher levels of customer service

AutoGuru went one step further to turbocharge its customer care with more complex integration and personalisation. The call center team wanted to see what a person was viewing in real time, so they could reach out using voice or SMS. It set up a dialer solution using Twilio that took leads from the website and populated information for its agents with the user’s search data. For example, if a person was looking for a service on a Ford Ranger, a call center agent would know that and could follow-up with other assistance related to Ford trucks. “No one in Australia offers that level of service,” says Pryce.

The robust platform in the call center also improved the customer experience. All of the backend systems at AutoGuru are integrated with Twilio. “The customer experience with the contact center is seamless across all touch points,” says Pryce. “We wouldn’t have been able to do that with an off-the-shelf call center solution.”

Efficient booking with Twilio

AutoGuru improved the booking process using Twilio, relying on SMS for appointment confirmations. “Mechanics don’t read emails, but they do look at mobile phones,” explains Pryce. “So we had a strong case to use mobile applications to make the booking experience better for the mechanics.”

Once the company launched automated bookings with SMS, 40 percent of its bookings were automatically validated and verified. “Twilio SMS has been the key,” he adds.

Twilio also helps call center agents handle more complex bookings faster, which saves the customer valuable time. AutoGuru agents can easily transfer to other agents, call the qualified mechanic, and confirm a repair reservation while the customer is on hold. Previously, this was a two-step process taking several hours rather than minutes.

To help customers book servicing and repairs, the company uses SMS, voice, and chat. According to Pryce, the number of bookings has grown 10% and cancellations have been reduced since adding SMS & Chat. And the company saves 2.5 hours per day by using SMS booking automation vs. telephone. If the customer gets to the final stages of booking a car service appointment but doesn’t proceed, the call center uses Twilio Dialer, giving the customer a call within 10 minutes. If they don’t book, AutoGuru tries to understand why the customer is not doing business with the mechanic and captures that information in the CRM.

The right tools for the business

Launching the Twilio solutions at AutoGuru required only six weeks and few dedicated resources—only 1.5 people on the development team. The company plans to implement full call recording for coaching and mentoring and also to do sentiment analysis from call recording to get a sense of the customer attitude.

Customers have been very positive with the booking experience provided by AutoGuru, as it scores an “Excellent” 9.2 out of 10 rating on TrustPilot. And Pryce and his team are positive that they chose the right tools for the business. “Twilio is the AWS of the communication world. It takes all the complex areas of communications and gives us a framework to build on. Moving to Twilio has been a great experience,” says Pryce.