Toyota’s joint venture with Indian conglomerate Kirloskar Group, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), announced Tuesday the opening of its first virtual showroom in an effort to digitize the car buying experience for its customers in India.
“Owing to the pandemic and growing access to technologies, customers increasingly prefer digital and contactless experience,” said V. Wiseline Sigamani, the Associate General Manager of sales and strategic marketing at TKM in a press release. “Last year, as COVID-19 disrupted the purchase lifecycle, we took immediate steps to digitize our sales process by making available pricing, offers and booking in the online realm. The virtual showroom further simplifies all the elements of car buying by digitizing and integrating the key touchpoints in a customer’s purchase cycle as a one-stop-shop solution.”
Inside the virtual showroom, shoppers can pick any model from a Toyota’s lineup of vehicles and get a full 360-degree view of both the interior and exterior. Users can also toggle between a variety of features such as model variants, color options, and other interactable elements such as switching on the lights, opening the doors and viewing the car in night and day mode.
With an integrated payment gateway, users can also purchase vehicles directly from the showroom, as well as process offers, receive finance options, and apply for loans.
One feature TKM is particularly excited to share is the ability for shoppers to visualize what a vehicle will look like parked in their garage using AR technology. With their smartphones, shoppers can impose a projection of the car of their choice to determine if it is the best fit, size or look for them.
Customers can also arrange a test drive of their desired vehicle directly from the showroom, and have it delivered at their nearest dealership or home. Toyota states it has already integrated all its deal partners onto the platform, and promises that the showroom will be made available on their websites soon.
“The core idea behind the virtual showroom is to empower our customers to access our world-class cars from wherever they want to,” continued Sigamani. “Moving forward, we will continue to listen to our customers keenly and introduce new solutions and tools leveraging digital technologies to further improve their buying experience.”
