During RVX, a new entity made its appearance to RV manufacturers for the first time at a trade show. Togo, an RVing app campion that helps with travel-planning and maintenance, is new to the industry, it is deeply rooted in decades of experience in both the “recreational” and “vehicle” aspects of RVing.
“Togo is really about thinking of how we can make RVing easier for the customer,” said Dave Simmons, president of Togo. “We’ve spent an awful lot of time researching sitting down face to face with large groups of customers understanding where their pain points are and really thinking through how we can use technology smartly. Very simply make RVing easier for them.”
Togo, which launched during Open House 2018, is part of TH2, the global, digital joint venture between Thor Industries and New Zealand-based Tourism Holdings Limited. Both are titans in the industry, positioning Togo to become a standard across all RVing experiences.
The app features Roadtrippers, a trip-planning tool that can go a long way in helping first-time RVers hit their prospective checklists before traveling. It also tracks maintenance for RVs, keeps service records, and sends notifications when service is finished.
“Obviously when someone buys an RV there’s quite a lot to keep maintained on a vehicle,” said Simmons. “The electrics, gas, the chassis component, and all sorts of different things. Invariably, when you spoke to owners, you found they had big folders full of kind of like manuals and all sorts of things that was kind of put away in the study.”
RVers, he said, may forget about these issues which can lead to ongoing problems. Togo helps inform not only that a vehicle needs to be serviced, but helps users remember what needs to be done.
Although not as important as the metric of engagement, so far the app has been downloaded more than 130,000 times. As brands like Airstream, KZ RV, Heartland, and Thor Motor Coach adapt its usage, Togo is primed for further expansion, potentially beyond Thor Industries.
“We are in the process of talking with several non-Thor OEMs currently,” explained Simmons, “both some in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.”
Concurrently, Togo has paired with Winegard and AT&T for Roadlink, a means of RVers to receive 4G LTE connectivity throughout the U.S., turning RVs into Wi-Fi hotspots.
As a solution for RECT, Togo prides itself in “customer-led innovations.” As new versions of the app release, the improvements and responsiveness may be enough to retain customers and convert new RVers.
“You can certainly expect an ongoing and very frequent cadence of updates and new features,” said Simmons. “We’ve got a considerable roadmap that we are working into. The roadmaps are based upon the insights from the customers that we’ve spoken with – a wide cross-section across multiple markets, across both towable and motorized. Togo will continue to evolve and address the needs of the RV owner.”