Fast cars, now with fast contracts, thanks to Claris FileMaker.

Exclusive Cars, located in Vienna, Austria, sells highly customizable Bentleys, Bugattis, and Lamborghinis. Customers can configure their luxury cars in a million different ways, choosing everything from an interior stitching style to one of 300+ exterior colors. Ensuring customers get exactly what they want is one of the auto group’s greatest value propositions, but this attention to every custom detail makes for a complicated and lengthy sales process.

Previously, customers chose not to wait for final offers in the showroom because it took Exclusive Cars a while to verify line items and manually calculate total costs of customized details. The dealership knew it needed to drastically cut down this turnaround time, so it called in 72solutions, a Claris Platinum Partner, to help.

Operation fast contracts begins.

When Exclusive Cars first approached 72solutions with a complex problem and a near-impossible deadline, FileMaker developers and Claris Platinum Partners Stefan Pusch and Philipp Puls were ready for the challenge. “We have 30 years of experience in Claris FileMaker development, and we know what we’re doing,” said Philipp.

What made the contract process so complicated wasn’t just the configurations, it was the taxes. While Exclusive Cars is in Austria, the dealership also oversees the entire Eastern Europe region, selling cars in six countries with six different currencies with 12 different taxation structures depending on car configuration.

Before they had their custom app, the Exclusive Cars team manually calculated total prices and taxes for every contract, then sent the calculations to respective market offices to double-check the math and currency conversions. Mistakes in the contract could result in penalization by financial authorities, but “also, at the end of the day, for my company, mistakes harm our reputation,” said Sanjin Arkus, CEO of Exclusive Cars.

The verification process, while crucial, dragged contract turnaround times even longer — not a great customer experience.

“It looked like we were in the Middle Ages,” Sanjin explained. “The customer wants an offer as soon as they visit a dealership, and they want a clear, immediate message: ‘This is what you get and this is how much it costs.’”

Sanjin handed the FileMaker developers their first challenge: He needed a working prototype within eight weeks, so he could show it at a meeting with other dealership CEOs across the region.

Off to the races with the first lap dedicated to discovery.

The developers knew they first had to understand the nuances of the current sales offer process before designing the new system. So, after an initial briefing on Exclusive Cars' needs, 72solutions dove straight into discovery.

First, Stefan and Philipp analyzed the static PDF proposals Exclusive Cars sent to its dealerships for verification, as well as all input and output files used in the sales process. The two developers had to understand exactly what data these documents contained, the format, and adaptation for each market. Stefan and Philipp then shadowed the car sales team to see how these PDFs were generated and used in the offer creation process.

“Our reaction to the first working prototype was a relief because you know that the project is going to work and all the difficult hurdles have been taken on,” Stefan stated. “I'm always optimistic in my ability to solve all the problems I'm facing because I'm very good at using Claris FileMaker Pro.”

FileMaker drives very, very fast when facing sharp turns and pivots.

Several times throughout the build, the developers used FileMaker to pivot quickly.

First, 72solutions changed their initial plan of having the Exclusive Cars app integrated in one file. They realized, in addition to having an email fetch application as a module of their standard tool kit, they needed a user management module. After attaching these separate modules, the custom app grew into a multi-file solution. Each country within Exclusive Cars’ coverage needed its own separate file, too.

“That’s where FileMaker’s database migration tool was a great help,” Philipp said.“We wouldn't have been able to build the solution without this tool because now we have one development file, then we only need to do a rollout to the different country files, and they're all on the same development level in an instant.”

Another major pivot came halfway through the project. The initial plan was to build a native app using FileMaker Go so each salesperson could work on their iPad, but IT requirements called for web deployment. No problem for these two developers! The FileMaker toolset can deploy anywhere, allowing an easy mid-stream switch.

Stefan and Philipp decided to create a web-based app instead, reducing the installation effort on the Exclusive Cars team’s desktops and mobile devices. “We took a sharp turn that would have been a costly change with another platform,” Philipp explained. “This quick pivot was possible by using the WebD technology provided by Claris FileMaker.”

“If something doesn't work the way Exclusive Cars wants it, we can just go into FileMaker, change it, and 10 minutes later, the customer already has the new version up and running,” Stefan added. “That's what I really like about FileMaker – you can react so flexibly to the wishes of your customer.”

The developers choose FileMaker to build digital solutions for their customers because it’s ideal for projects that aren’t exactly straightforward. “We're on a very, very fast platform and this is good for projects that you don't know exactly where the project is headed,” Stefan said.

Lightning-fast custom app delivers contracts in moments.

Following a few final tests and tweaks, the 72solutions team demoed the new application to all the managers of Exclusive Cars dealerships. “And guess what? Everybody wanted it immediately,” Sanjin exclaimed.

Today, every Exclusive Cars location — a dozen in all — uses the custom app built with FileMaker. Once a three-day process, their typical sale now looks something like this:

• A customer comes into the store, picks out a car, chooses interior stitching, exterior color, wheel model, and about 90 other customizations, while the sales representative documents everything on an iPad.
• There’s a handshake, and the salesperson hands the customer a cup of coffee.
• Just a few sips in, the sales rep has a printed contract ready to sign.

“We see customers getting the offers and the contracts more quickly,” Sanjin said. “We don't need to double-check the contracts anymore, and we aren’t losing time by checking them through some financial departments.”

Contract customization no longer comes with a complicated, manual process or dread that the customer might change their mind after time has passed. The sales team can instead focus on doing what it does best: selling luxury cars.

“I'm proud of solving yet another problem — making it beautiful and making it useful,” Philipp mentioned.

Continuous innovation lives on the roadmap.

As the dealership grows and the auto industry continues to evolve, so does Exclusive Cars’ custom app.

The dealership recently expanded to Switzerland, adding a new currency and tax structure to the system. Previously, onboarding a new market would have taken at least several weeks, but with the FileMaker solution, the Switzerland expansion was up and running right away.

“We have the advantage of having everything in one system, which is already approved,” Sanjin explained. “So you just add an additional country, additional dealership, or additional personnel, then you can start working immediately.”

Exclusive Cars can quickly include new cars to the system, too — a common use case with more hybrids and EV models coming on the market. Now it only takes about 15 minutes to update the FileMaker app with the new car details, then the team can start selling it.

“It would have been impossible for them to keep all this data up to date,” Stefan explained. “In our system, when a new model comes along, we just put it in the model table and Exclusive Cars can update details that describe the model.”

Sanjin now considers himself a bit of a FileMaker evangelist. “I'm always making advertisements and showing what’s possible to achieve in a very short time. I recommend it to everyone – FileMaker is, for me, a very quick, very flexible solution.”

As for what car he’d assign as FileMaker’s mascot, “FileMaker is definitely a Lamborghini because it’s fast, agile, and makes things possible.”

Fuel your digital solutions with enhanced capabilities.

Solutions developed with Claris FileMaker continue to power businesses and solve problems all around the world because of its ability to build with speed and iterate to perfection.

“Claris FileMaker is the basis of our company and has been for 30 years,” Philipp said. “It's the platform for all our projects and supports our development needs. Whatever the customer throws at us, we can create solutions confidently because of FileMaker.”

Similar to the way developers constantly iterate their custom apps, Claris continuously updates FileMaker with new features and enhancements. When you have access to the latest version of FileMaker, you’re equipped with the most recent capabilities, giving your digital solutions even more power for the future.

If you’re not using FileMaker 2023, now’s the time to discover how to boost the performance of your custom apps, increase scalability with more hosting capacity for users and files, and better protect your data with enhanced security protocols. Check out what’s new.