Challenge

As an adaptive enterprise, Kwik Fit makes significant investments in customer offerings, process improvements, and opportunities for continued growth. In 2021, Kwik Fit identified one such opportunity to better meet the changing needs and preferences of its customers.

Shifts in consumer behaviour and driving habits, a drop in vehicle ownership among young drivers, and the general impact of the pandemic had disrupted the automobile service industry, while demand for subscription services—particularly among younger consumers—was growing dramatically. In fact, studies showed that 86% of adults aged 18–34 hold a subscription to a service, with drivers in this age group holding an average of six subscriptions to services across all sectors. The evidence was compelling: Kwik Fit had a unique first-mover opportunity to adapt its business model to better serve this market of young drivers.

Like many mature enterprises, Kwik Fit was working with a complex landscape of technologies. It called upon Showoff to help streamline their processes and unlock its data from disparate SaaS systems. Showoff, in turn, leveraged MuleSoft and a leading CRM’s technologies along with Stripe solutions to help Kwik Fit quickly and smoothly launch a new subscription service model, Kwik Fit Club.

Solution

Showoff’s partnership with Stripe helped Kwik Fit to rapidly develop and deploy a brand new mobile app and payments system for Kwik Fit Club customers. The app was integrated with Kwik Fit’s existing CRM and used Stripe Billing and Payments to introduce a new subscription-based offering, giving Kwik Fit a first-mover advantage in the UK market. In addition to payments, Stripe Radar and smart retries helped Kwik Fit streamline the process of managing recurring revenue by reducing fraud and minimising attrition and missed payments.

Kwik Fit Club, a monthly car maintenance and tyre subscription service, provides an easy way for drivers to manage and pay for tyres and other regular vehicle costs. Behind the scenes, MuleSoft helps deliver the Club experience by aggregating data such as make, model, wear rates, and other characteristics to create a unique subscription for each vehicle with Stripe. Once the subscription has been activated, MuleSoft facilitates the service, coordinating booking slots and required inventory for each booking, as well as reconciling service costs with invoices.

Kwik Fit’s expansive network of facilities and expert workforce, in combination with Showoff’s top-tier technology platform and Stripe’s payment solutions, allowed it to create a seamless subscription service for the modern car owner.

Results

Kwik Fit Club went from proof of concept to live consumer offer in less than 12 months. The project was a first-to-market offering in the UK and received the 2021 National Tyre Distributors Association (NTDA) Product Innovation of the Year Award for its highly-personalised digital solution that brings subscriptions to the world of automobile maintenance.

Crucially, Showoff’s close partnership with Stripe gave Kwik Fit the business model agility to launch award-winning innovation to a mature industry, meeting the expectations and preferences of a new generation of car owners.

"We’ve been using Stripe since day one at Showoff," said Shane Byrne, CEO of Showoff. "Stripe became our payment provider of choice as we segued from early-stage startups to more mature enterprise customers, like Kwik Fit. We’ve implemented solutions with other payment providers, but we’ve never found one that has been able to compete on ease of implementation, flexibility and connectivity to external systems.

All of that and the fact that Stripe has continued to invest in its solutions and become a globally-recognised force in payments has meant that we never needed to look beyond Stripe. We’re proud of what we’ve delivered in partnership with the amazing team at Kwik Fit and our partners at Stripe and MuleSoft, bringing a new type of subscription to market."

About Showoff

Founded in 2012, Showoff has grown to be a key partner for our customers and partners alike, delivering premium solutions in an expedited and clinical fashion. For more information, visit www.showoff.ie.