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RESCUE Vehicle Services

RESCUE Vehicle Services

About the Company

RESCUE Vehicle Services headquartered in Bangalore, India was incepted in the year 2011, by Prasanna Sivan and Amith Pallipady to give Bangalore’s commuters a quick, on-the-spot alternative to searching for local garages, when they’ve broken down. Prasanna Sivan noticed that for the longest time, vehicle breakdown services offered by the roadside were the domain of unorganized and exploitative operators. Vehicle manufacturers provided roadside assistance services but with long wait times and opaque processes. Professional roadside assistance, a household concept in the west, was practically non-existent in India. There was a genuine need for a swift and professional private roadside assistance provider and RESCUE was founded to fill this void in Bangalore as a trusted, round-the-clock emergency vehicle service. Since its inception, RESCUE has aimed to be a localized specialist who can provide seamless and rapid roadside assistance anywhere in the city with just one transparent call as opposed to national chains which push customers to multiple executives, during their critical time of need.  

Current Market Landscape

The current landscape for automobile services, while certainly exciting, may seem crowded with lots of new entrants and older names consolidating their market share. However, the slice of Roadside Assistance in the broader vehicle services pie is far from reaching saturation point. There are few quality providers in this specialist on-road segment throughout the country.An interesting trend observed from this vantage point is that there are a lot of companies which started off as purely Roadside Assistance providers, moving into segments such as doorstep vehicle servicing, car wash and service station chains and diluting their raison d'etre.

A market challenge, not just for Rescue, but for the entire roadside assistance sector is to educate the masses on the benefits of purchasing medium and long-term roadside assistance plans and breakdown insurance policies. RESCUE tries its best with creative marketing campaigns to reach new audiences and open up the market. So far, the response to invest in an annual package has been the best in the customer demographic of 27 to 40-year-old office going male, professionals.

RESCUE is looking to improve from the position it is currently in and the firm is not looking to over-stretch itself into other verticals. The firm’s long-term vision has always been to cement its place as a household name in the roadside assistance sector and it remains deeply committed to the same.

Challenges faced by RESCUE

The biggest challenge for RESCUE was to organize and build an entire company from scratch in a largely unorganized sector. From hiring and training technicians to building custom-made tow trucks that hadn’t, back then, been seen on Indian roads, the firm has moved mountains to build a professional roadside service in a city infamous for its infrastructural woes and grinding traffic. The high initial investments to build a fleet of breakdown vehicles and specialist equipment was another major challenge which even today, is a stumbling block for many new entrants. RESCUE has overcome the operational challenges thanks to a dedicated team led by Amith Pallipady, the COO and Co-Founder, who expertly navigated the peculiar challenges that the sector and the city threw up. RESCUE decided early-on that nailing down certain operational processes would reap long-term dividends and so far, the firm has been right!

Services

RESCUE offers round-the-clock emergency vehicle services anywhere in Bangalore. This includes flat tyre services such as puncture fixing and spare replacement, dead battery jump-starting services, emergency fuel delivery, minor mechanical and electrical repairs, key lockout recovery and a host of another specialist roadside/on-spot services anywhere in the city.

When the technician is unable to get the vehicle moving from the breakdown location, RESCUE assists the customers by towing their vehicles to a destination of their choice with its custom flatbed towing trucks. In addition to these core services and due to the reputation of safety and reliability RESCUE has built among the automotive community, the company frequently finds itself being the primary choice for long-distance towing of high-end vehicles such as Harley Davidsons, Triumphs, Porsches, BMWs among others.

Apart from its USPs of having industry-best turnaround times, being available 24x7x365, a wide local network and professional technicians, the truly unique benefit that RESCUE offers its customers is by way of its annual roadside assistance plans. There are simply no plans in the market which are as cost-effective as the plans offered by RESCUE for the accompanying benefits provided.

Differentiating Factors

The core competency of the Roadside Assistance Company lies in the in-house technical crew, operational strength and wide network of coverage which is built and nurtured carefully since its inception. In the current tech-crazy, millions-fetching aggregator business environment, it is easy to believe that simply building an app which brings together individual technicians and service stations would suffice. RESCUE avoided this temptation early and focused on building a reliable team hands-on and setting up dependable offline systems. There have been numerous aggregator businesses which have shut shop over the years despite being heavily funded while RESCUE has steadfastly improved the quality year-on-year and built a solid brand. RESCUE has also differentiated itself from the local operators with its data-driven approach. The firm has learnt about the pain points and improved its efficiency and quality by analyzing the accumulated wealth of data and by adapting locally, the best of the latest research on automobile assistance and transportation from all over the world.

The sole factor that facilitated RESCUE to become a key player was a loyal customer base, who were willing to give a chance and take upon the promise of providing the best roadside assistance experience. Their word-of-mouth influenced the growth and was instrumental in the decision to set up the annual retail plans. Their investment into these plans and the services secured the future and gave the firm a platform to build on.

Organizational Culture

RESCUE actively hires employees from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds to bring different perspectives to the work. The company provides the employees a certain level of autonomy to operate in their respective spheres. They are encouraged to share all ideas to improve the processes. The employees regularly create and collaborate with other teams. These ideas are implemented within a common organizational process. The employees gain a thorough expertise in the working of emergency assistance services and roadside assistance. Many former employees have successfully transitioned into entrepreneurship and senior roles in the automotive and logistics sectors.

Growth Figure

Being one of the first specialist Roadside Assistance companies in India, RESCUE can proudly say that it has led the industry with several firsts. The most significant of these was the launch of the custom flatbed two-wheeler towing trucks. They were the first of their kind anywhere in India. They changed the way two-wheeler owners and businesses transported their broken-down vehicles. The firm successfully managed to design a safe, automated process to load any model of bike, from Activas to Harley Davidsons; onto the truck. The company is also one of the first Roadside Assistance companies to offer retail plans for customers to protect against breakdowns. The successful annual plans have provided Bangalore’s commuters a trusted alternative to their vehicle manufacturer’s roadside assistance offering. RESCUE is currently the leading Roadside Assistance provider in Bangalore with the widest network of technicians in the city. They are valued local partners of many major automobile brands across Bangalore

Future Plans        

RESCUE is committed to building a strong tech platform for its services which will help in developing the RESCUE experience like never before seen in the country. The company plans to launch a handy mobile app and revamp a lot of manual processes. It is also actively looking to expand to other Indian cities soon.

Bangalore is seeing daily revolutions in the way its citizens commute. The scope of diversification for the firm in helping these transportation disruptors keep their fleets moving is immense. Hoping for a bright future, the firm is already involved in exciting conversations with some of the most well-known transport brands in their niche fields. This is a great opportunity for the firm to help each of them deliver and manage a better experience for their employees and customers. RESCUE is in a position to deliver top-notch services that can be counted on at their critical moments of need and their brand’s moments of exposure.

Quick Facts:

1.     Year of Inception – 2011

2.     Founding Members – Prasanna Sivan and AmithPallipady

3.     Office Location –Bangalore

4.     Total Headcount – 50 - 75

5.     Website – RESCUEfirst.com