Business Messages helps Bajaj Auto’s lead conversions skyrocket by over 14x

The world’s third-largest motorcycle manufacturer, and second-largest in India, Bajaj Auto was founded in 1945. Over 75 years later, Bajaj Auto is present in 79 nations. In 2020, it was ranked #53 on India’s Fortune 500 list.

Bajaj Auto Ltd., Pune, India

www.bajajauto.com

Retailer using Business Messages

14.3x

increase in lead conversions

10%

decrease in re-engagement CPA (cost per action)

over 34k

unique users engaged

80%

higher Search Intent compared to the competition

Google's Business Messages, in combination with the ORI Revenue Acceleration platform, allowed us to assist our customers at the most important point of their customer journey: their discovery phase. This in turn skyrocketed our overall visitor-to-lead conversions.”

Shardul Verma, Head of Digital Marketing

Customers chat with Bajaj through Google Search

Customers chat with Bajaj through Google Search

Summary

With the launch of the brand new Pulsar 125 motorcycle, Bajaj Auto wanted to get ahead of the game by building buzz around the product and establishing its brand as the world leader in the 125cc category of two-wheelers.

Ultimately, however, the company wanted to engage more meaningfully with its target audience: ambitious, self-made achievers who are urban dwellers aged between their late 20s and 30s, and ensure that their questions would be addressed as fast as possible. They hoped this would increase their lead conversion rate, and eventually, their sales conversion rate.

In May 2021, Bajaj Auto partnered with ORI, a conversational AI-based revenue acceleration platform, to launch Google’s Business Messages on its website. By using conversational commerce to aid product discovery and investigation, Bajaj Auto assisted over 34,000 unique users, engaged in over 300 hours of automated chatbot conversation in 2 months, and saw a whopping 14.3x increase in lead conversions.

The challenge

Bajaj Auto placed great importance on the successful launch of the Pulsar 125, but the company also understood the challenge posed by the complex customer journey behind purchasing a motorbike. Consider the fact that the typical research timeline for a new bike purchase spans many months and that users average an estimated 900+ digital interactions before coming to a decision. Bajaj Auto needed to develop a uniquely informative and natural experience that would provide customers with the right information at the right time, in a conversational and friendly way.

Another consideration was the messy middle of the customer journey, which saw users seeking a personalized experience that could answer their own specific questions and ultimately assist them in making a final decision. Accordingly, Bajaj Auto also needed a solution that could bridge the gap between the customer journey and the final conversion; ultimately suggesting that the Pulsar 125 is the right fit for their personal needs and lifestyle.

The approach

To coincide with the launch of the Pulsar 125, Bajaj Auto partnered with Conversation AI revenue acceleration platform, ORI, to create a Business Messages experience that embodied an ideal persona for their target market. This persona was friendly and informative, and it led users on a self-investigative journey to find their perfect bike. A colloquial, humorous tone was adopted, and a test drive was the main call-to-action.

If a prompt (such as booking a test drive or visiting the closest dealership) was declined by the user, the life-like chatbot would make a joke and move on before continuing to assist the user down their product discovery path.

Additionally, the ability to recognize users for a 30-day period meant the AI-powered platform could greet familiar users and encourage them to pick up where they left off, whether they were exploring, educating themselves, or researching their options. This allowed Bajaj Auto to control the end-to-end customer experience, obtain rich insight into users’ journeys, and discover which features of the Pulsar 125 resonated most.

The results

Bajaj Auto used Search Intent as the overarching measure of brand popularity when compared to their competition. Even when India was thrust into COVID-19 lockdown, Bajaj Auto’s keywords outperformed its competition by 80%.

Moreover, by empowering users on their product discovery journey, the AI chatbot that was featured on Bajaj Auto’s website engaged over 34,000 users and had over 300 hours of conversations in only two months. 23% of these users returned after their initial experience to re-engage further, decreasing their average re-engagement CPA (cost per action) by 10%.

But how did this really impact their customer acquisition? Over the course of the two-month period, Bajaj Auto’s average lead capture percentage was just shy of 10%, with a reach of 14% during the initial weeks of the launch.

All the more impressive was the impact that Google’s Business Messages and ORI’s AI-powered revenue acceleration platform had on Bajaj Auto’s lead conversion rate, which achieved a massive 1,335% increase to 14.1%