Home Case studies Automotive SaaS for Test Drives, Insurance & Payouts

Automotive SaaS for Test Drives, Insurance & Payouts

The partnership between Droplets and Visual Craft originated at the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed accelerator, where innovative startups turn their ideas into reality. Droplets, keen to enhance the dynamics of interaction among customers, car dealers, and insurance agents, enlisted Visual Craft to bring their visionary application concept to life. PitCrew was designed to solve a critical problem in car dealerships— how to onboard test drivers, process DMV paperwork, and generate insurance quotes seamlessly in a digital-first world. Prior to PitCrew, this workflow involved excessive paperwork, siloed processes, and major friction between dealerships and insurance agencies.

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Client's Objectives

Create a User-Friendly Interface for Multiple User Roles:
Design a unified interface that supports more than three distinct user roles, ensuring each role accesses relevant functionalities while adhering to a consistent, intuitive design philosophy. This interface should enhance user navigation and satisfaction across different roles without compromising on personalized user experience.
Synchronize Documentation and Compliance Across Car Dealers and Insurance Agencies:
Establish a synchronized system for managing and updating documentation and compliance requirements that are relevant to both car dealers and insurance agencies. This system should automate the sharing and updating of necessary documents to streamline compliance and reduce manual errors.
Enhanced Data Security and Privacy Measures:
Enhance data security protocols and privacy measures to safeguard user information, especially during ID scanning and document handling processes. Implement industry-standard encryption and secure data handling practices to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with GDPR and other data protection laws.
Dynamic Adaptability to Changes in Regulations and Market Conditions:
Ensure the application is adaptable to changes in legal requirements and market conditions without extensive manual updates. Incorporate features that allow easy updates to compliance measures and user functionalities in response to new regulations or market needs.
Simplify Insurance Quote Generation:
Allow car dealerships to request quotes and insurance agents to process them — manually at first, with future automation in mind.
Implement Incentives via Referral & Bonus Payouts:
Motivate agents with automated bonus tracking and payouts via Stripe Connect.

Challenges

Turning an MVP Vision Into a Real-World Product

As a fast-moving startup, PitCrew needed a team who could challenge assumptions, guide scope decisions, and ensure development was business-aligned.

Digitizing the Test Drive Workflow Without Compromising Security or Speed

The dealership workflow for test drives involved lengthy, error-prone manual paperwork. The client needed a secure, efficient way to onboard drivers, capture license data, and generate DMV documents on the spot.

Integrating the new co-applicant functionality into the existing system

Integrating the new co-applicant functionality into the existing test drive booking system required meticulous planning to ensure compatibility with the current architecture. The team needed to develop a system that could handle additional information and integrate seamlessly without disrupting the user experience of the existing platform. To overcome this, the team utilized modular development practices, allowing them to integrate new features without affecting the core functionality of the existing system.

Make the process of onboarding for new users simple and intuitive

The core challenge was in need for a library that seamlessly integrates with the existing website's user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design while offering the flexibility to accommodate diverse and evolving onboarding processes. The interface needed to be straightforward yet comprehensive enough to cover all necessary onboarding steps without overwhelming new users. Ensuring the new library could integrate without disrupting existing systems and workflows was essential. Compatibility issues could lead to increased development time and potential system vulnerabilities.

Enabling a Manual-but-Trackable Insurance Quote Flow

The client needed a simple solution to let dealerships request quotes from their in-house insurance agency (Polk Dot) while avoiding complex API integrations at MVP stage.

Automating Bonus Payouts and Referral Tracking

The client wanted a way to reward sales reps for generating insurance business. The system needed to: Track bound policies Calculate earned bonuses Handle money transfers via Stripe Connect

Solutions

MVP-First Development With Feature Validation

To prioritize functionality by business value, we conducted workshops that helped shape a multi-phase roadmap. Initially, manual workflows were implemented, with plans for API automation in later phases. We defined success metrics that focused on key business objectives, including test drive setup time, quote-to-bound conversion rates, and payout processing timelines.
In under six months, we delivered a working MVP, which included staged releases for the test drive module and car sales agent management. This allowed PitCrew to launch a business-ready MVP that was capable of scaling operations and efficiently onboarding real dealerships.

Clickable prototype

Startups often have limited funds, so it's crucial to perform thorough planning and prototyping before entering development. The Visual Craft team conducted an in-depth discovery phase and developed a step-by-step development plan that will allow us to easily integrate new features, scale, and customize the product in the future.
For prototype creation, we started the discovery phase of the project. During this phase, our team, in close cooperation with stakeholders, processed and created the optimal user flow for all roles, which will be used in the application. As an integral part of this process, we’ve created the wireframes, design, detailed technical requirements, and clickable prototype.

Smart, Multi-Step Onboarding With OCR + Signature Support

We built a 3-step process that mirrors the real-world test drive setup:

Vehicle selection via VIN scan or CSV-imported car list
Driver license OCR: Photos of front/back license auto-fill the form (fallback: manual entry)
Instant DMV permit preview and e-signature with digital timestamping

If barcode scans failed after 3 attempts, the app gracefully redirected to a manual form, ensuring no dead ends.
All steps concluded with optional customer data collection (email/phone) and insurance opt-in.

Result: Test drives could be set up in under 3 minutes, with instant PDF-ready DMV documents signed on-screen.

Smart, Multi-Step Onboarding With OCR + Signature Support

Created a user-oriented and native for mobile devices application and new features development

We combined automation and quickness with simplicity and usability in UX/UI in order to meet all client's requirements and make the application usage comfortable and multifunctional.

Co-applicant features

In response to the need for enhanced flexibility during the test drive process, PitCrew implemented a new feature allowing dealers to designate an additional driver as a co-applicant directly within the test drive booking interface.

User-Intuitive Interface for Sales Agents:

We've integrated a straightforward interface tool on the Test Drives Details page, enabling sales agents to effortlessly assign an additional driver as a co-applicant for the vehicle title application.

Automated Document Update:

Once an additional driver is designated as a co-applicant, the system automatically updates the Title application document. This regeneration includes a new DMV section specifically for the co-applicant, seamlessly integrating with the main customer’s information.

DMV Information Display:

The updated system design displays DMV sections for both the main driver and the co-applicant under their respective information areas, aligning with the latest interface design guidelines.

Exclusive Designation:

The functionality restricts the designation of only one additional driver as a co-applicant per test drive, ensuring clarity and compliance with vehicle registration processes.

This feature simplifies the onboarding of co-applicants during the test drive phase, enhancing operational efficiency for dealers and improving the customer experience by streamlining the necessary administrative processes. The implementation ensures compliance with local regulations and adapts dynamically to user interactions, providing a robust solution.

Intuitive and easily configurable onboarding tooltips

This feature was designed to streamline the process of integrating new sales agents or dealers into a company’s network through mobile or web platforms. This feature aims to simplify and expedite the onboarding process, ensuring that new agents and dealers can quickly become effective members of the organization.
The team evaluated multiple libraries based on their compatibility with the current UI/UX frameworks, their ease of customization, and the community and developer support available. Libraries that allowed extensive customization and had robust support for dynamic content changes were prioritized.
The chosen JavaScript library had to support easy modifications of the onboarding process, allowing the team to add, remove, or alter steps without significant redevelopment efforts. This was crucial as the feature needed to adapt to new functionalities or changes in the onboarding sequence.

Quote Request Flow With Manual Processing Support

“Request a Quote” button embedded into the final test drive step and the details page.
Pop-up form for partial customer info (SSN digits optional, phone/email optional).
Email + dashboard notification system to alert agents instantly.
Insurance agents logged in to view a structured, read-only quote dashboard and manually input details into external carrier sites.
Agents could upload insurance cards, which instantly triggered in-platform availability + email alerts to the dealer.

Result: Dealerships completed test drives with verified insurance documents, even without real-time integrations.