C_VIEW

Making the Car Buying Experience Less Stressful & More Enjoyable

  • Year of Project: 2012

  • Project Duration: 3 months

  • Roles of Project: Design Strategist

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Summary

This is a sponsored project in 2012 by a client, an owner of a car presentation company(CARPOOS) in Germany. 2012 was the time when Apps on the phone were starting to change how people consume & interact info. The client wanted to see how Apps will change people's decision-making process in purchasing a car and how to envision his business with it.

Buying a car is a stressful but also exciting decision that involves a lot of thoughts, a review process, and a large amount of money. Without expert knowledge about cars, people are afraid of being ripped off by a dealer/seller, especially when they are buying pre-owned cars.

How can CARPOOS ease this stressful buying car process and make it enjoyable with an App?

Vision

1. WHAT TO PLAY?

Goal

How can CARPOOS make customers feel a sense of control in the decision-making process in buying a car with an App?

Outcomes

  • Staying relevant in the industry with a new way of people consuming info

  • Transiting business model from print interaction to digital interaction (multiple interaction channels)

  • Building up a car community around potential consumers and dealer/sellers and expanding service lines with 3rd parties

Strategy

2. WHERE TO PLAY?

Problem

Complicated Decision Making Process for Big Investment

To understand how people make a decision in purchasing a car. I interviewed customers and dealers in used car dealerships and the following are the problems that I found.

  • The way cars are presented is the same

  • People are afraid of being ripped off by dealers and don't know how to deal with them at the early stage of research.

  • There are too many cars, too much information. People know they need a car but they don’t know what car can support their needs - if you have a baby, how a baby stroller can fit into a car.

Value Exchange between Stakeholders in Car Buying Process

Needs of Stakeholders

I Looked into the needs of stakeholders, who are involved in this decision-making process and what they want. There are three stakeholders, a potential customer, a dealer, and a decision helper. First, the potential customer wants to feel control and lead the decision-making process over dealers, which was the main focus of the entire design process. Second, a dealer wants to reach customers with a tactic of how to approach them and sell more. Lastly, there is always a decision helper to the customers in reviewing the decision process. By understanding the needs of each stakeholder, I tried to make interactions for them to exchange their values throughout an App.

Tech & Social Trends

What People Do with Their Smartphones in 2012?

I researched what the Social trends were that people were doing with apps. With a mobile phone, people can always connect to others, share their opinions anytime, and validate their own solution. Then, how can I apply this trend to the car buying experience and support their needs? Is there technology that makes the experience easy and different?

Solution

3. HOW

Visualizing Your Needs & Lifestyle with a Car Using Augmented Reality

CVIEW

Using the Augmented reality mobile app, customers can visualize their needs/lifestyle with a car, simply collect the info. The collected cars can easily share with decision helpers and review them and their dealers in comparison. Also, based on how a user makes a priority, CVIEW will sort out the collected cars and layout them in order. Using CVIEW App, Customers will feel the sense of control in the decision-making process and enjoy finding new cars and putting them on their wish list.

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Tactics

4. BUILDING CAPABILITIES

Leveraging the Relationships with Dealer & Car Manufacture in Germany

Value Exchange Map

To ease this stressful buying experience, I designed a way for the customers, especially women, to review their choices with professional decision helpers like mechanics. By adding two more stakeholders - car manufacturers and car accessories shops - the customers can enjoy finding cars for their needs and understand them better with augmented reality features on the app. The data of the customer’s decision making process and their preference will be provided to the other stakeholders to understand customers’ needs in the market.

Key Activity System for the “HOW TO WIN”

Set of Key Activities for CVIEW

The core competencies of CARPOOS are the channels with dealers and car manufacturers. CVIEW’s business model is designed based on these competencies. In a transition of CARPOOS’s business from print interaction to the digital platform, building software technology/management is the first capability they have to develop and differentiate. 

Working with different stakeholders, CVIEW can provide a virtual interactive space for them to interact with customers and fairly compete with competitors by offering better value to customers. Within the five different groups of stakeholders, CVIEW has to have a control power as a platform, and the power is coming from having marketing channels to potential customers.

Next Steps

5. Future Foresight

Rollout Plan

Creating a Crowd-Sourced Community about Cars

Ultimate outcomes for CVIEW is creating a car community around potential consumers working with dealer/sellers. Having groups of people and interaction channels between them, CVIEW can work with Dealer, Seller, and other 3rd parties (car insurance & car loan) and expand its service lines targeting to the community.