How many times did you have to compromise your car services because the authorized service centers are just too expensive? How many times did you have to travel miles just to get a minor problem in the car fixed? How many times were you duped into believing that your technician was using “genuine” parts?
“Car is one of the most valuable possessions of a household and you cannot trust just anyone with it.” Hence, founders Harsha Vardhan and Pradyumna Challa came up with the idea of Carista.
The Journey
Founders Harsha Vardhan and Pradyumna Challa along with 2 other members started their entrepreneurial journey with Carfields.com, an aggregator of car workshops. With around 30 dealerships onboard and 8 months into product development, the founder realized a difficult truth – Their Idea wasn’t working. Their revenue was Nil in the first two months and minimal after, along with no value addition to the car owner. The founders state that “It was a mistake to outsource the product development due to which we lost a lot of precious time. We were devalued by the dealerships, who used us merely as lead-generators.”
After the acknowledgement of the problem, Harsha and Pradyumna decided shut down the entire operation. “We wanted to build something which gives value to car owners ” says Pradyumna Challa.
With no product in mind, a failed start-up past and falling apart of the original team, the two founder decided to start from the scratch. They set out to, first, understand the needs of the customers in the automobile market. After reviewing around 50 customers they came to a conclusion that there is no definitive after sales services provided to the customers. It was found that customers were unsatisfied with services provided by their dealers.
To give a direction to an unorganized and sometimes inefficient area of the automobile industry, the idea of Carista came into existence. “Carista started out as a Solution to a Problem” expresses Harsha.
Initially, Carista services were open to only friends and family of the founders. “It was our trial period. We wanted to see if it was a viable project.” Say Founders Harsha & Pradyumna.
In March 2016, Carista was launched and its services became available to the public.
The Promise
From easy bookings to affordable prices, Carista promises to provide quality service to its customers. Carista provides car repairs, maintenance services, and vehicle diagnosis at your convenient location of a home or office. The founders stressed on the importance of not outsourcing their core work.
Hence, all of their Technicians are thoroughly screened and well trained before they are allowed on the field. With an aim to provide maximum customer satisfaction, all parts used by Carista Technicians are genuine. This technology centered car garage enables their customer to summon the technicians as per their convenience.
“We have special mobile workshops fitted with all the garage equipments, along with certified trained technicians, that visit your place and perform the necessary repairs. Since our mechanics are mobile, we have significantly lower overheads compared to an authorized garage. We pass on this benefit to customers, so our price quotes are significantly cheaper than that of a car workshop.” explains Harsha.
The founders believe in their workmanship & parts and therefore, provide a period of warranty to customers on the services offered.
The Challenges
The major difficulty faced by them is that of the business cycle. Carista promises to use only genuine parts for the services and hence whenever these parts are required, there is a time lapse between the placing of the order and receiving it.
“We hope to overcome these challenges with time.” Express the founders.
The Future
Currently operating in four localities of Bangalore Carista team plans to open their services to the entire city in a time span of three months. “Since we are a technology centered multi-brand garage, all we need is a couple of weeks to set-up our systems & we’ll be good to begin operations.” explains Pradyumna.
Once the services are available in the entire city of Bangalore, the founders plan to further expand their operations in Chennai.
The founder made it their mantra to bring customer satisfaction to the maximum level by solving grassroots inefficiencies. “We have seen both sides of the business, we have seen the perspective of the dealer as well as the consumer. Therefore, we know how to work better now.” Says Harsha. The founders further add “We experienced failure the first time around but we have evolved over time. We redefined our process, reworked & relearned everything and today we are able to provide such a service to the consumers of the automobile industry.”
Link: http://carista.in/