When you have a small accident or crash, the main thing you want to know is how much it’s going to cost and how you’ll get your car repaired The dilemma of figuring out who to call and the stress of driving around to get estimates is exhausting. These decisions can be overwhelming but with the help of AI customers can get a quick estimate of how much a car repair might be.
What AI can do for car repairs it can do for a number of things, check out our Whitepaper that explores the potential of AI in the Manufacturing Industry
One company in particular that uses AI to improve customer experience is Car10. The Brazilian start-up has created an app that allows customers to take a picture of the damage, submit the photo and get three to five estimates from nearby car repair shops that Car10 has pre-screened for quality and reliability. The start-up even guarantees it will make the repair for free if you aren’t satisfied. Car10 announced that it is using Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services Custom Vision Service to almost immediately give the user a rough sense of what they expect the repair to cost.
The AI system uses a machine learning model to compare the damage to the customer’s car with other examples of similar damage to come up with a reasonably close estimate. Then, the company works with car repair shops to get firmer bids.
The AI system may speed up the quote process, but it doesn’t replace the hands-on involvement that Car10 has in ensuring customers feel comfortable throughout the process of getting their car repaired.
Car10 works with customers on everything from providing the estimate to scheduling the visit and even paying through Car10’s digital platform. The customer then has the opportunity to rate the experience and the shop where the repair was made.
Car10 has about 100,000 customers and works with about 4,000 auto body shops throughout Brazil, ranging from big businesses to small mom-and-pop shops. The company initially focused only on larger shops, thinking that was what the customer would prefer. However, they found that customers didn’t care whether the shop was being run out of someone’s garage or a fancy office. They care about the quality of the service.
Car10, which has received start-up, first started building the AI solution when the company participated in an industry Hackfest. Although it has an IT staff, none of the people who work for Car10 have an expertise in AI. Azure Cognitive Services are designed so that even people without any formal AI training can use them.
Car10 is roughly five years old, and it expects to break even within a quarter. Now, the company is seeking more funding so that it can expand into other areas of business, and potentially other markets outside of Brazil.
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