Using web crawlers to prevent expired rego’s

With the removal of registration stickers some years ago, many dealerships and businesses have been caught out by employees driving a stock vehicle or a service vehicle that is unregistered. Unfortunately, the driver is ultimately responsible for checking whether a car is registered which is made more difficult by the absence of registration stickers.

The fine in South Australia for an unregistered vehicle can be as high as $7500. With so many vehicles and vehicle movements within a dealership, there is a huge risk of a vehicle unintentionally being driven while unregistered.

However, there is an easy, efficient and accurate way to check a dealers fleet and their service customer cars for expired registration. A web crawler, is an automated program that mimics an internet user looking for information, data or content to either index (like Google) or retrieve information.

Using Apify, some dealers have created a web crawler that visits the EzyReg website (SA online registration website) enters the Rego number of the stock unit or customer service vehicle and returns the rego expiry date or unregistered status.

The result of the crawler can then be integrated into an Automated CRM followup system where the customer is notified via email and SMS that their vehicle is unregistered or expiring soon. Notifications are also sent automatically to staff to notify them of customers who are unregistered. Notifications are also sent to rego clerks to remind them of upcoming expiry regos. 

Potentially saving dealers 10’s of thousands, while only costing hundreds of dollars.