GONE are the days when car owners count solely on relatives, friends and, yes, the friendly neighborhood mechanic for car-related services like body repairs, engine, electrical or even underchassis repair, detailing and spare parts, thanks to the entrepreneurial mind of Anton Ojeda, former Zomato country manager, and founder and chief executive officer of beepbeep.ph.
“We were sitting around thinking of what industry we could be of help by modernizing and introducing innovative technology. As fate would have it, the founders and I all had relevant experience that ended up getting us to where we are now,” Ojeda told the BusinessMirror in a recent interview in Makati City.
He noted that the car industry does not use technology for maintenance and service and relies solely on traditional methods such as referral, affinity and whatever is cheaper.
And that paved the way for the birth of the online platform, gateway and destination for all car requirements, the beepbeep.ph, a digital solutions company that was specifically created to make all car-related needs hassle-free.
With the entry of beepbeep.ph, Ojeda believes motorists will now have bigger and better options in the maintenance of their vehicles. Good thing the founder of beepbeep.ph, the first-of-its-kind locally made app and the world’s most comprehensive auto service directory listing, came up with a way to make things a lot easier for today’s motorists.
Ojeda’s cofounder, former Advertising Executive and beepbeep.ph Chief Operating Officer Paolo Acosta, has an intimate knowledge of the car servicing industry, as his family’s business was a car shop. “I grew up exposed to mechanics, to old cars, grease, paint… I pretty much know how car shops are ran,” said Acosta. This love for cars coupled with a desire to change how things are being done helped form the company into what it is now.
For the team, it’s all about making it easy for motorists to maintain their single most expensive possession: their cars. “Metro Manila has more than 3 million motorists. And those motorists don’t have enough information on the different types of repair shops, location of car wash providers, and prices of towing and other services they can avail of, ” the beepbeep.ph CEO shared.
Beepbeep.ph taps advertisements in its directory listing. Acosta said the platform can offer premium advertising exposure to new clients. Moreover, he said, car companies also place advertisements about their services.
Mainly a directory listing
THE platform links car owners to over 8,000 curated and vetted car shops that can help address all car needs in the most efficient and time-saving way.
“Our vision is to be an innovator in this industry and, hopefully, for people to witness and experience how things have greatly improved so much that they can look back to a time before beepbeep.ph and to a time after,” Ojeda said.
The platform also provides a trio of handy features that modernize the local car service industry. Search and canvass lets users get a detailed look at establishments and what to expect from their service—a menu of services, features, operating hours, addresses and google map locator, payment methods and estimated cost per visit. The directory also includes insurance providers and Land Transportation Office outlets.
With beepbeep.ph’s maintenance valet, Ojeda said, car owners do not have to interrupt their daily routines to have preventive maintenance services or even annual auto-detailing jobs done on their vehicles, as they can now just simply search for their preferred car shop on the web site or the app, book an appointment, and have their cars picked up by company drivers to take their car to the shop and delivered back safely once the service is done.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is provide convenience, wherever you are, home or work, and bring a certain quality and reliance to it,” explained Ojeda. As for security measures, drivers are fully equipped with body cameras and are continuously monitored via GPS for constant monitoring.
“Aside from that, there is also our roadside assistance, which is a 24/7 full service for car emergencies. This not only covers batteries and wheels. We are talking about flat beds, conveyance, mechanics on-demand, locksmith or something as simple as getting your tire change—and introducing credit-card payments to that,” he said.
In their effort to make their list as comprehensible as it could be, Acosta said their team found out that out of the 8,000 car shops in Metro Manila, only 10 percent to 12 percent offer roadside assistance, making it harder for motorists on distress to find assistance, not to mention the fact that nobody is sure if assistance is available on a 24/7 basis.
“For that, we made sure that ours makes it easy for people to get assistance especially in emergency situations,” he added. “What’s more, the service can be availed of with just a call of our number and with no membership required,” Acosta said.
With 50,000 users, a dedicated call center, reliable valet drivers, and the trust of over 8,000 car service establishments in Metro Manila, beepbeep.ph is in the forefront of modernizing the car service industry.
Their mission, plainly put, is to cover anything in the car space. They even want to help users look at information on car sales, find quality car accessories, and discover the best car deals and promotions all in one place. Ojeda said his group offers its partner shops reliable source of data to base well-informed business decisions, “We also happen to welcome them into a platform where the size of their business doesn’t matter. It’s the quality of their goods that becomes important.”
In the end it’s all about empowering both the shops and the owners. “The more businesses that use us, the more modern their businesses become, the more power consumers we get. It’s that and the means for motorists to be informed and become responsible car owners,” he said.
In the succeeding years, beepbeep.ph intends to expand to provinces nationwide, and bring the same model to Southeast Asia and to the world.
To avail yourselves of the services, download beepbeep.ph app on the Apple Store or Google Play.