Starting as an RSA aggregator offering emergency vehicle breakdown assistance, SG Auto Assist is transforming into an auto-tech company and aims to become a unicorn by 2023. As per venture capital parlance, the term unicorn refers to any start-up that reaches the valuation of $1 billion. Currently, it is valued at about $ 13 million.
Speaking to Mobility Outlook, Hitesh Sharma, Founder CEO, SG Auto Assist, said the company is currently expanding its operations, offering general service, RSA for EVs, commercial vehicles, battery charging and swapping stations, telematics, on-board diagnostics, GPS and Fastags.
With these initiatives alone, the company is expected to grow threefold every year, consecutively for the following three years. Besides, the company is looking at launching its services in the APAC region soon. 'We are launching in Singapore next month and in the following months, we will be launching in Malaysia and the Philippines. This will help the company grow by more than fivefold, making the company cumulatively to become a unicorn in three years,” Sharma averred.
“We are the only bootstrapped company in this domain across the country. And in the future, the plan A is to go for an IPO and Plan B is to go for Series A funding round by international investors,” he added.
Electric Vehicles
To support EV customers, the company is focusing on both B2B and OEM tie-ups. Currently, it is organising training of its service partners from OEMs only. “We know the fleet is scattered, but with time we are enhancing our EV service offerings. With RSA, we are partnering with different brands to set up charging stations, including remote charging stations on our towing trucks exclusively, and battery swapping stations,” he said.
The company currently offers RSA in the case of vehicle breakdown. If the car needs to be towed for any repair or a need for jumpstart or emergency car assistance, the company will help fix the issues. The company claims that it has a subscriber base of about 4.75 lakh customers.
SG Auto Assist has an extensive contact centre that provides customers with timely services in the case of car breakdown. However, it has strategically aligned on-road car repair fleet, flatbed trucks, forklift trucks, etc., to provide the required services within the provided deadline. As no unauthorised repair is done to the customer's vehicle, the RSA will not affect the warranty of the vehicle with the manufacturer, the company said.
Women Power
To enhance its service delivery, SG Auto Assist is now focused on cross trainings and skill development trainings of its existing service partners. It is also focusing on training women manpower to provide exclusive service to its female customers, and to begin women empowerment in this segment of the market, Sharma said.
Zero Service Denial
The service offered by SG Auto Assist is different from those companies operating similar services, Sharma claimed. The company provides Zero Service Denial; while other service providers deny service, when a customer actually needs RSA. The company, on the contrary, do not deny even a single service.
Going one step forward, it offers a service guarantee. In case if there is a delay in providing the committed services, the company will pay INR 5 per minute as compensation to the customer. This is possible as the company has more than 10,000 service providers across India, serving more than 6,500 towns in its fold.
In addition, it offers its services at a standard pricing every time everywhere, wherein other players in the market work on dynamic pricing and price surge basis on demand, he said.
SG Auto Assist does not have physical workshops; instead, it has tow trucks and mechanics who work in remote locations. The reason these vehicle repair service providers join the company is due to real-time settlement of their service fee, transparent billing, skill development, and other training programmes, Sharma said.
On authenticating the repair process at the service centres, he said, “We do not offer franchise model anywhere. To ensure our service delivery quality we have our in-house network team who do audits time to time. Every customer has to go through our customer care; no customer can directly reach our service fleet or vice versa. Also, we do not replace any spares by ourselves; we tow the car to an OEM workshop or multi-brand workshop (as per customer's preference) for all repair and replacement.”
On the vehicle manufacturers' acceptance of the SG Auto Assist platform, he said, “We segmented ourselves for used vehicle segment. We only serve customers whose vehicle is more than three years and less than 10 years old. After the initial warranty period, OEMs offer RSA and other services at a higher cost, and most of the customers won't enrol for it. So, we offer these services at a price less than that charged by OEMs, when customers need support for their three to 10-year-old vehicles.”
Elaborating on the AI-driven Auto Life Cycle Management Platform, Sharma said the platform is the company's future, and it is working to create a platform that offers all auto-related services under one roof. The services will include buying and selling of new / used vehicles, vehicle financing, subscription/lease, motor insurance, general service, tyres & batteries (with door-step fitment), roadside assistance and even scrapping of the vehicle.
“AI plays an important role here in understanding customer's behaviour, choice, requirement as well as compatibility of vehicles with the products and offering which we are supposed to offer,” he added.
Irrespective of the vehicles or customer locations, RSA customers face several issues, including situation-based surge pricing, unskilled manpower, service denial and lack of service fleet. Asked how the company mitigates these issues, he said, “We charge standard price from our customers; we never expose our customers to any service delivery partner or any third party, who can change the price for the service offered. We have cross training and skill development programmes to mitigate unskilled manpower issue.”
Regarding service denial, the company has a condition in contract with its service partners stating that if they deny any service without any substantial reason, the company will charge double the amount for the service from the partner, Sharma signed off.