Scaling GoMechanic 3.0 — COVID-19 Exclusive
“When fishermen can’t go to sea, they mend their nets”
This suits perfectly well for every startup amidst the bloodbath due to the COVID19 pandemic. Yes, these are difficult times, but there is a silver lining to this cloud as well. At GoMechanic, we are using this time to improve the product, train the staff and ensure relevant process are in place that were always on our to-do list, but were always surpassed by more pressing requirements. Read on to find out what we have worked on and what has worked for us.
App Indexing:
A major problem a lot of apps face is that it’s much harder to route users to content in app, as opposed to web where you could just run some search campaigns on those search queries. The challenge lies in letting users know that there’s already an app installed in their phone which can fulfill the intent of their search queries.
App indexing is a major help in landing the user on the right content within your app. Take an example here.
If user searches for “car service in gurgaon” when he/she has already installed the GoMechanic App. It will route user to specific section within the app rather than the home page.
Earlier, one needed to add app as a property in the search console to be able to see app indexing search console data. Google no longer allow users to add app as a property. You can now check app indexing data directly from your web property under search appearance section.
In-App Update
Another weapon in your arsenal is In-App Update feature. So you’ve made a lot of effort to improve the app, and want to get users to the new version of your app. A lot of developers do send Push To Update or show in app section to request an update, but users hate to be interrupted from their intent to use the app. Still a non believer? Check out our app update event numbers.
Nearly 40k+ users updated the App after rollout of in-app update feature. 24.1K of these updates were on day 1. Earlier this number used to be approx 1K whenever we rolled out a new app version.
Major improvements we rolled out in this update:
App Checkout Leads: Users who dropped out at the end of checkout were added into CRM so that someone from sales got in touch with the user and helped out if there were any doubts or concerns about the purchase.
AC Services, Tyres & Battery replacement services : We launched AC Services, Tyres & Batteries replacement service in our app thus it now offers more use cases than earlier.
Engine Oil Upgrade: We provided users with an option to upgrade their engine oil in App. Surprisingly, 24% of the users upgraded the engine oil!
Truecaller Login
Reducing number of user inputs and steps is a great idea in boosting conversion. Single step checkout alone wasn’t sufficing for this purpose, so we added Truecaller login so that there’s no need to manually input their contact number.
Local Inventory Ads
We were quite stringent about not adding products manually for all our locations. LIA gives you flexibility to link existing products to local stores.
KYC (Know Your Car)
Another idea we have executed to keep the user engaged and informed is that we have created several infographics to educate our users about the exact issues with their cars. A user receives one of these infographic according to the issues with their car via WhatsApp along with the estimate.
If there is an issue with the steering system of the vehicle, at that point the customer would likewise get an infographic with the estimate clarifying them how the steering system functions, the significance of that part, the reasons the issue may have happened and proposals to fix the part.
Having informational intent not just transactional intent helps in building trust with the users. Plus it gives the user more confidence about your expertise in the domain. Not only this we have also included blogs in our app to keep users informs of current automobile trends and increase the utility for the app during the lockdown and later as well.
Order Tracking Link
The user now gets customary updates of their vehicle saving them the time and effort to call the Service Buddy and getting an update.
Order Tracking Link has paved the way toward getting updates about the user’s vehicle making the process smooth and advantageous. The user gets a tracking link on their WhatsApp and can keep a watch on their vehicle from the moment it gets picked up.
User can also get estimate & bill on the order tracking link itself and they can see pictures of their car at the time of delivery.
User can pay online post service, this helps in developing another use case for the App if user books the service via website or calls. This helps with more app downloads and better retention as user has already booked service with us at least once.
NPS helps in improving customer experience as you get to know how satisfied customers are. Also, It helps in retaining existing customers and improving customer’s LTV.
GoMechanic Insurance Protection Program
Convenience can’t be a surrogate for trust!
We realised this and have added GoMechanic Insurance Protection Program for Free Pick up and Drop services so that their car is insured against any harm, up to a limit of INR 10,000. Hence now convenience comes with trust. It helps in allaying concerns of the users who are a bit hesitant to book the service for the first time.
Sunsetting SQL
This was the perfect time to take a hard call on sunsetting SQL and moving to MongoDB.
The main reason to switch to Mongo from SQL was to create a Bug-free and flawless system as the code would not get any bug unless you change it’s logic.
For the next 10 years, Mongo will rule as it has a larger community base and it becomes easy to find people who can work on it. Everything is scripted in Python now as compared to earlier when everything was scripted in PHP.
SQL is vertically scalable, so it needs more RAM whereas MongoDB is horizontally scalable, and can add more servers. If we take an example of GoMechanic, earlier it had the capacity to take a load of 1000 users only at a certain time, but now 15000 users can place an order at the same time.
Mapping of your application Data Objects, directly into the document-based storage is very easy. Document matches more closely to an object than a set of relational tables of RDBMS.
Dealing with Affiliates
We often confuse poor performance with fraud, As you can see MI may have poor conversion, but you may never see any fraud whereas check other affiliates above.
CTIT (Click to Install Time) come in handy to track such frauds ideally it should be greater than 15 seconds. So when next time you’re dealing with affiliates, keep an eye on such fraud terms for better ROI. Although Branch already blocks the suspicious traffic and separates it from regular healthy analytics.
GoMechanic PLUS+
GoMechanic PLUS is our premium subscription service from GoMechanic that gets you additional savings on car care & repair needs, worth more than ₹15,000. In a short span of three months, we have succeeded in getting more than 3000 subscribers in Delhi/NCR alone.
Subscriptions or loyalty programs are a killer way to retain existing customers and increase customer lifetime value (LTV).
GoMechanic on iOS
We’re not limited to Android anymore. A lot of users were missing out due to iOS especially luxury car owners. Increased use cases made it significant to roll out App on iOS.
Although iOS holds roughly 5% of market share, but you do not want to miss out on the high %age of High Net Worth (HNW) users.
Way Forward
None of us really know how much longer the quarantine situation is going to continue, and even after the quarantine it is quite possible that remote work might be the norm for some time. But that said, you can do as we are doing and focus on improving your products and processes so that when the day comes when the Sun shines again on us, we are ready to go out with all guns blazing. And trust us, that day will come for sure.
