Cars24 plans to set up giant service centers by year end

MUMBAI: The servicing of automobiles in India has been a constant tug of war between consumers and dealers with long wait times, far flung service shops and delays in getting cars back, a bane. So how does Cars24, one of the earliest unicorns in the auto space, which buys around 20,000 cars a month manage to clean up their cars fast enough in time to sell them?

“The service component of pre-checking is as essential as an NPS or net promoter score for other companies, and is the hardest hating I have ever done by far,” CEO and Co-founder Vikram Chopra says. “You have model levels, variants, different makes and you have to get the right equipment, spare parts and what you can fix and what you can’t and be transparent about it.”

In addition, there are spare parts dependencies and labour dependencies, Chopra says. Will he ever open up the centres to service regular cars? Chopra says that might be worthwhile to pursue even if he can convert it from a cost centre to a revenue centre. But it would happen after a couple years once the company rationalises its own work stream processes. Chopra says that the cars his company buys come from all kinds of consumers that are mostly individual sellers, across the country.

Sellers dispose of cars in the condition that they are in. Once Cars 24 receives it, the company takes a call if it can sell directly or should make it up to its own standards, Chopra says, adding, “around 30% doesn’t meet the standards” and they are sold to dealers. The rest, which is almost around 14,000 cars a month, are sent to service centers which check everything from paint, ACs, transmission, and exteriors and interiors and fix them up as required. Cars24 partnered with over a 100 third party workshops that were originally multi-brand workshops but now 90% are exclusive to Cars24.