AutoCheck.co.uk, a comprehensive vehicle history service aimed at consumers, was a once popular consumer website that Experian Automotive retired in 2013. In 2016 Experian approached Avco Systems to develop a modern replacement.

The Problem

AutoCheck.co.uk, a comprehensive vehicle history service aimed at consumers, was a popular consumer website that Experian Automotive retired in 2013. In 2016 Experian saw an opportunity to bring it back and approached Avco Systems to develop a modern replacement that would revitalise the brand. Experian has a long-standing business relationship with Avco, which gave them confidence that a new and modern AutoCheck.co.uk built by Avco would exceed expectations.

The core functionality of AutoCheck.co.uk is providing paid vehicle history reports to help consumers with purchasing decisions. Users input the registration number of a vehicle they are considering buying and are presented a summary of the history of the vehicle. The report includes data points such as outstanding finance, plate changes, whether the vehicle has been stolen or written off, and more. The service also provides a data guarantee which protects users from financial loss in the unlikely event of inaccurate or incomplete information in the report.

Since AutoCheck.co.uk is a consumer service one of the primary objectives was to provide an engaging and attractive user experience. It was important that the new service work across devices and provide a first-class experience to smartphone users. The generated reports needed to be straightforward, easy to read, and visually pleasing.

Other challenging aspects of the project included requirements to process consumer payments, integrate with Experian’s vehicle data APIs, and provide a management interface for Experian’s customer support team.

The Approach

Avco and Experian worked together to define the core user journeys of the site and establish a set of high-level requirements. These requirements were prioritised and fed into Avco’s collaborative agile development process, which allowed Experian to review, engage, and provide feedback regularly.

An entirely new backend was created that would comply with both Avco and Experian’s high standards of security, performance, and maintainability. The backend integrated with Experian’s automotive data services, as well as additional data providers, to provide comprehensive and up-to-date vehicle information.

A responsive frontend was built from the ground up to provide a pleasing and engaging experience for users regardless of device or screen size. Avco and Experian worked together to design and tweak the core user journeys in order to drive adoption and conversation rates.

To handle consumer payments Avco employed their Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant payment processing service. Using this pre-existing and proven service allowed Avco to remove the hurdle of PCI compliance from AutoCheck.co.uk itself, leading to reduced cost to Experian and faster delivery of the project. Experian also opted to utilise Avco’s managed hosting services which allowed for a seamless and hassle-free transition from development to deployment.

Intuitive tools were created for Experian’s support team allowing them to interrogate, report on, and manage users of the system. Avco collaborated with this team to ensure that the tools would help them perform their core tasks as efficiently as possible.

The Result

The new AutoCheck.co.uk was delivered on time with all its objectives met, and continues to be hosted, managed and supported by Avco.

In the years since its release Experian have utilised Avco’s expertise to gain insight into usage patterns, search engine optimisations, and user journey improvements. This led to several collaborative projects that successfully improved the traffic, sales, and conversation rates of AutoCheck.co.uk.

Most recently Avco assisted Experian with preparing AutoCheck.co.uk, and several other Experian products, for compliance with the new GDPR data privacy regulations. Among other changes, Avco implemented an administrative tool for supporting data subject access requests (DSARs). This tool was praised by Experian’s customer service team as one of the most intuitive solutions they have worked with.

The AutoCheck.co.uk service continues to grow in users, revenue, and popularity. (If you’re interested in the AutoCheck.co.uk service, use voucher code “AVCO” for 50% off)

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