COVID 19 has forced most of the car manufacturers to go digital to achieve the contactless transaction. Maruti Suzuki country's largest carmaker has integrated and already digitized as many as 21 of the 26 touchpoints in a car purchase journey, including documentation and payments.
Maruti Suzuki Executive Director for Sales and Marketing Shashank told "We've launched a pilot for a one of its kind finance marketplaces on digital that assists a customer in the car buying process by providing digital easy finance. And hopefully, over the next six months, we should move to fully digital financing options which will be an industry-first," he said.
Srivastava also said that certain touchpoints such as the final delivery and test-drives cannot be digitized.
"We are currently looking at a 'digital' approach wherein we seamlessly blend the limited physical touchpoints with the maximum digitized touch-points so that we strike a balance between digital interface and actual dealership showrooms," he noted.
During and after the lockdowns were lifted we have seen an instant acceleration in digital enquiries. Today, digital is contributing to nearly 35 per cent of enquiries and during the lockdowns especially, we saw more than 45 per cent of our enquiries coming from digital channels only.
"This was only 13 per cent in FY19 and 5 per cent in FY18. Today digital enquiries have become the largest medium for enquiries," Srivastava said.
Elaborating on how Maruti is going about its digital drive so that they can provide a more personalised experience to customers, he said the company has set up a content management system.
"This helps us personalise communication to each customer depending on the digital signals in their purchase journey with us, and provide them with the best car buying experience. Staying connected with the customer throughout the year is a priority for us because, on digital, she need not wait for a marketing campaign, instead, she can be reached out on-demand," he said.
