1) Opportunity
While living in Gainesville for college over the last four years for college, I have experienced car trouble almost every year I am here that I had to sort through alone without the help pf my parents. Every time my car had an issue It was followed by an extensive process of inconvenience after inconvenience. Even when I was younger and living back home, I remember my dad always asking my grandfather to come over to drive together to the auto repair shop so he could drop off his car and give him a ride back. I think this opportunity exists because cars are an essential part of our daily lives. We depend on them to take us everywhere and without them, our day to day lives are completely disrupted. The need I’ve identified is people needing a better, more efficient, more convenient way of getting car repairs done. This market is made up of both males and females ranging from their mid 20s- 50s. The market includes employed Individuals living alone or couples that both work outside the home have an extreme burden placed upon them should their car break down. Often, this vehicle is their primary mode of transportation to and from work. Typically, they must reach out to family and/or friends for help to make transportation arrangements when this happens. They also must spend time away from their daily activities in order to deal with the problem. Not only does this problem create transportation challenges but it also creates time away from work to arrange for repairs of the vehicle, which may lead to a financial burden as well. There is an opportunity here to simplify this event.
Innovation
ARCS, Auto Repair Concierge Service, will provide several innovations to our customers. We will provide a way for customers to easily have their cars repaired with no hassle. ARCS will deliver a rental car to its customers and then drive the car needing repairs to the shop or have it towed if it needs towing. ARCS will also have an app that the customer can use to track the progress of repairs along the way to gain a better sense of the completion time. The app will also provide such information as a break-down of the repairs being performed and costs associated with the repairs. Once the repairs are completed, ARCS will deliver the repaired vehicle to the customer’s doorstep and drive off in the rental the customer had been using while their car was in the shop. ARCS will partner with insurance companies to provide their service to the insurance company’s policy holders for an added premium. ARCS will simplify the auto repair experience. What exactly I am selling my customers is a service membership. They will pay a monthly fee of around $70 and this will provide them unlimited service whenever necessary.
Venture Concept
This innovation will solve the opportunity I identified by taking care of the customer’s hassle of dealing with their car needing repairs every step of the way. Most importantly, customers who live in a one car household will not be inconvenienced during car repairs because we will provide them with a loaner car. This way they will not be left stranded without a car. Customers will pay the monthly fee for ARCS because the service we provide is unmatched. We provide a convince to our customers that they will not be able to find anywhere else. There will be no “switch” because there is not a service already on the market that takes care of all the aspects that ARCS does. The only possible competitor out there would be Triple A (AAA), but even they don’t provide everything that ARCS will. Customer support and Customer experience will play a huge role. ARCS will aim to provide an unmatched customer experience. ARCS employees will go through an extensive training program to ensure that the customer experience is the same at all locations and overall. Our customer support team will be there for all our customer’s needs every step of the way. We will need a lot of employees in different departments from customer service to scheduling, to membership, to drivers, etc.
The 3 Minor Elements
My most important resource that will make it hard for competitors to copy our success will be all the aspects of the car repair experience we cover. Unlike Triple A (AAA) that only assists with things like towing, battery replacements, etc. they don’t provide a loaner car and convenience the customer throughout the car repair process. This is what will keep our customers coming back to us time and time again.
Something that I would like ARCS to tackle next in the future is completing repairs with our own mechanics in house instead of outsourcing to other repair shops. I feel this will only add to convenience as we will be able to increase the speed of repairs and make things more cost effective for the company. To pair with car rental companies in the future we will have to provide them a small percent of profits or pay them a fixed yearly or monthly fee.
Within the next five years after this venture I would like to see ARCS expand nationally throughout the United States and become a household name. This first venture would help me gain my credibility in the business world and allow others to take me more seriously as an entrepreneur.
2) The feedback I received was relatively positive. I received confirmation that my idea to eventually expand in the future to include our own repair shop and mechanics instead of outsourcing was indeed a good idea so we don’t lose that revenue to other repair shops. I also received praise on the uniqueness of my service, and how there really isn’t anything like it at the moment out in the market.
3) The feedback was positive and supportive, so I left a large majority of the venture concept the same as before. Someone made a point and mentioned that in order to pair my service in the future with a car rental company, that we will have to provide them with something in return. I edited this in my venture concept under the three minor elements section.
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