The car rental industry, while being valued at $112.99 Billion, is still running on traditional business methods, and has a poor customer experience, often leaving users unsatisfied with the whole process. 

With the current advancements in technology and AI, this process can significantly be improved, saving time, money, and effort for both the business owner and the customers. 

How does automation in the car rental industry help? And what are some processes that can immediately be automated? Let’s find out more in this blog!

Why does Automation make sense in the car rental industry?

There are a ton of benefits of automating your business processes while running a car rental. Here are some key reasons why you should consider it – 

1. Better customer experience

A seamless experience with added novelty is become a crucial factor that helps differentiate your business from the competition. 

From booking a car, returning it back, to raising tickets in case of issues – customers prefer a seamless experience at every step. 

By automating different processes, such as car inspections, you are providing a novelty for your customers, giving them a smooth experience with minimal hassle. 

This will not only help improve retention, but will also save you time and effort in the process. 

2. Portability and convenience

In today’s world where everything is so fast-paced, customers hate having to visit a car rental to first check out the car, wait in queue to receive the car, and get lost in the paperwork involved resulting in a few good hours wasted. 

Enabling your customers to do this remotely with an app where you give them the feasibility to check out the car, verify its condition, upload all the required documents at the click of a button, and keep track of the vehicle status, saves a significant amount of time, money, and effort for both the customer and your business. 

Combine this with automating different processes like vehicle inspections, order processing, documentation, and after-sales support, and you have a smooth and hassle-free process ready to be implemented.

3. Flexibility

Giving customers the flexibility to execute different tasks such as extending the rental period, making payments online, verifying documents etc. gives them a sense of control and transparency in the process which in turn elevates their overall experience. 

With the right blend of digitization and automation, this can very easily be achieved by any car rental company. 

4. Improved reliability

Manual efforts for every step is always prone to subjectivity and human errors which could result in inaccuracy at different stages. 

However, automating different processes in your car rental business removes this subjectivity, and significantly reduces the chances of error, which in turn helps increase the reliability of your business and the overall trust you’re trying to build with your customers. 

While all of these points seem good on paper, let’s talk about one such process that can easily be automated and the benefits it entails – Car Inspections. 

Why automate inspections for your car rental business? 

Car Inspections, as discussed already, are time-consuiming, tiring, and prone to errors when done manually. During this entire process, the customer is left waiting and is often worried about being cheated by the car rental business. 

However, by automating this process, you avoid a lot of these problems. For instance – 

• You’re cutting down on time taken for inspections before and after a car is rented, making the process a lot faster for you and your customer. 
• The customer now has full transparency on the vehicle condition and is more likely to trust your business with this process. 
• Since AI-based car inspections are tech-driven, they are less prone to subjectivity and errors. 
• Since this process is relying on an AI/ML model for functioning, more data will result in better accuracy over time. 

Additionally, companies like Inspektlabs, who are solving specifically for this process, enable you to conduct remote inspections from anywhere in the world, while generating reports with 90%-95% accuracy within seconds. They also come in-built with fraud detection mechanisms and provide repair/replacement decisions based on the vehicle health, saving you time, effort and money in the process. 

Conclusion

As technology improves, it is becoming imperative for businesses to adapt to the changing times and adopt these innovations into their business. 

Failing to give customers a good experience with the help of technology indicates that you’re still a backward business who doesn’t care about their customer needs, and they’ll eventually end up losing their trust on your business. 

To continue growing and have a competitive edge over other businesses, it makes sense to consider automating different processes in your business, while giving your customers a novel experience to build retention and increase revenue.