Being nosy with my Parker's

I told you last week about my new car - and I'm still very pleased with it! But today's blog is about one of the things everyone should use when they're buying a secondhand car. Have you heard of Parkers?

Well, you probably have - but I hadn't, until one of the Rapiders told me to use it. (The IT folk at Heron House are quite expert when it comes to cars, you know.) It's a source of information on second-hand cars used by - well, just about everyone really. It's full of things like the prices each model sells for, the things to watch out for when certain cars reach a certain mileage, that sort of thing. For someone not expert on cars - like me - it was as useful as a box of matches if you're on a camping trip without two Boy Scouts to rub together.

Let's be a bit more specific: on all the cars I looked about before buying my hatchback, I used their SMS Price Check. All you do is text in the car's numberplate in a certain format, and in moments you get back exactly the figures you need to help your decision. It feels a bit nosy, but hey, this is my bank balance at stake here!

(Just a note before we get into the text messaging part: no, this isn't a service operated by Rapide. We just think it's really good - a fantastic use of SMS to give people the information they want at exactly the moment they want it. And we know a thing or two about text messaging, I can tell you.)

Image property of Parkers

I used it on every car I went to look at. After three or four viewings of different cars of various ages, I started to get a pretty good idea whether the sticker price was fair or not. (All you do is text "PRICE" to 80806 with the car's registration number and mileage figure - it costs a couple of pounds, but that's a small price to pay to find out whether someone's pulling a fast one on you, isn't it.)

The big point I'm making, of course, is that the information you need is RIGHT THERE. Just as you're looking at the car, you can get this sense-check sent to your mobile, in less time than it takes the dealer to say "One careful owner". It's informative, reassuring, and available according to your schedule, not anyone else's. Everything you need in a 160-character message.

I thought I'd blog about this because it illustrates all the best bits of customer engagement: it's there at the right "moment", works when you're in the "mood" to receive such info, and it's delivered through the "mode", your mobile handset. The Rapide people actually wrote a White Paper mentioning these three important things this month - click here to download it at their website. And thank you, Parkers, for a great service!