i3 - January/February 2016 - 78

Policy

BY LEXI DE LOS SANTOS

FA C E S O F I N N O VAT I O N
DISRUPTING ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE

Chris Spanos

Co-founder & CEO,
Urgent.ly Roadside Assistance

othing can ruin a perfectly good day like
your car breaking down, leaving you
stranded on the side of the road. With few
options for roadside assistance, we're often left
searching for help in the wrong places or we're
forced to accept longer-than-necessary wait times.
In 2013, Chris Spanos, co-founder and CEO of
Urgent.ly Roadside Assistance, and his other cofounders saw a unique opportunity to use the ondemand economy to help alleviate the anxiety that
is associated with poor roadside assistance services.
Their startup simplifies the process by guaranteeing help is on the way with just a few taps on your
smartphone. To request roadside assistance, users
only need to input the make and model of their car
and identify the problem before they're instantly
connected to an available tow truck nearby.
Once connected, the user can physically track the
location of the tow truck as it approaches, much
like hailing a ride using a ridesharing service like
Uber or Lyft. Within the past year they have forged
partnerships with Mapquest and AT&T among
others, and raised $7 million in funding for their
startup. We discussed how they recognized the
need to emphasize the urgency of roadside assistance and how their product disrupts traditional
channels to provide real time solutions to consumers and the service industry.
How does Urgent.ly benefit its users? Tow
truck companies?
Urgent.ly gives you faster help and more insight
into where that help is and when it's going to arrive.
We've learned from our customers that a 30 minute
estimated time of arrival actually feels a lot shorter
when you can see that the truck is coming to you. We
like to say, "seeing is believing and seeing is trusting."
For tow truck companies, everything is done
on our platform so they don't have to fill out any
paperwork. We also pay them more than the
American Automobile Association (AAA) or the
insurance companies do within 48 hours. So, they
get more customers who are nearby, earn more
money and get paid faster with less hassle.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016

Are sharing economy platforms, like yours,
important to advance the tech industry?
Absolutely! The Urgent.ly team passionately
believes that the culture of how the consumer
finds, gets, manages and pays for services is
going to be completely disrupted by on-demand
technology. It puts greater power in the hands
of the consumers and the service providers, in
terms of their ability to participate in a growing
market to help them better run their business.
We've been successful in causing the auto club
industry, specifically AAA, agitation. But they're
running on an antiquated model based on getting the consumer to pay for a service that they
may not need, and they hope that you don't need
it, and then paying the towing company as little
as possible in the event that you do need a service. They've been taking advantage of the market on both ends, but now disruptive technology
and the on-demand marketplace has the ability
to match and connect consumers quickly.
Who is the target market for Urgent.ly?
The good thing is that roadside assistance is a
democratic experience that impacts everybody.
We target millennials because they're typically
not joining auto clubs and they look for an app
for every problem. We're also targeting families
because we know families are highly interested in
our "family view" and "accident detection" products. The third market consists of people who use
Google to search for roadside assistance in a truly
on-demand fashion. In some cases, they're searching because AAA told them they'll have to wait
90 minutes-and that's unacceptable-so they
begin looking for other options. We've developed a
whole suite of products that say, "Wherever you're
looking for roadside assistance, we're there. We've
got a product for you and you're going to find us."

The Urgent.ly
team passionately believes
that the
culture of how
the consumer
finds, gets,
manages
and pays for
services is
going to be
completely
disrupted by
on-demand
technology.

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/ http://urgent.ly/

i3 - January/February 2016

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