When Mercedes-Benz USA executive Greg Forbes heard that two of the automaker's East Coast dealerships were using text messaging software called myKaarma to communicate with service customers, he decided to visit them.
Mercedes was working with another vendor to develop a texting product, says Forbes, the company's department manager of service product management. It viewed myKaarma as a threat.
Mercedes' dealership managers and dealer council liked the other company. But service advisers -- who "hate everything," Forbes joked -- endorsed myKaarma, he says. Mercedes now uses the texting software in 256 of its 379 U.S. dealerships.
"Once you try it, you have a hard time giving it up," Forbes told Fixed Ops Journal.
The myKaarma software runs on mobile phones and desktop and tablet computers. It has two main features: customer communication and payment. Both are text-based.
The vendor bundles all of a dealership's phone lines for service into one phone number, so communication from the service department is easily identifiable to customers.
The company charges a $3,900 setup and training fee. Thereafter, dealerships pay around $1,000 a month for the service.
'Made himself invisible'
The developer of myKaarma, Ujj Nath, spent 14 months embedded with the service department of Volkswagen Pasadena in Pasadena, Calif., to learn as much as he could about its workflow.
"Ujj just wanted to see what they did," says Karl Zerrenner, the dealership's general manager. "He kind of made himself invisible."
Nath piloted the myKaarma software at Zerrenner's dealership. Service advisers and technicians have come to prize it, Zerrenner says. Even new employees, some of whom initially resist using the tool, are quickly converted, he adds.
The online payment feature of myKaarma has streamlined customers' pickup of vehicles after service, says Ken Lohr, fixed operations director at Galpin Motors, a Los Angeles area dealership group.
Shop throughput and customer satisfaction have increased because of myKaarma's text-based communication, Lohr says. Each of Galpin's 10 franchises uses the software, he adds.
Nath, 58, started his first company at age 20 in his native India. After he graduated from the India Institute of Technology, he manufactured parts for mining equipment.
In 1985, Nath moved to the United States to earn an MBA from the University of Texas. He then went to California to work for investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert.
The firm went bankrupt in 1990, just after Nath got married. "I lost my job overnight," he says.
'Makes things so simple'
Nath and his brother, Aloke, in 1990 started Syncata Corp., a supply chain management consulting firm. The company created a system for American Honda Motor Co. to distribute vehicles to its dealerships, which won an award from the automaker.
In 2005, Syncata was acquired by ProQuest Co., which itself was acquired in 2006 by Snap-On Inc. Nath became a regional vice president for Snap-On.
When he left that company in 2008, Nath was hired by Volkswagen of America to re-engineer its car distribution system. After an unpleasant experience with a dealership's service department in 2012, Nath's idea for myKaarma was born.
"The thing I love about myKaarma is the thought process," says Chris Barthel, fixed operations director of the C.A.R. Group, which operates 14 dealerships in California and Florida. All but two of the stores use myKaarma.
"It makes things so simple for us," Barthel says. A dealership can "send text, video, you can pay then and there, [and] all that happens on your phone while you are at work."
*This article first appeared on Automotive News here.