Bad Experience: Booking an Enfield Classic 500 at the Bangalore Brand Showroom I am from a small town called Kottayam in Kerala. As a child, I grew up hearing the sweat thumps from the passing bulls. There were couple of bulls in my street itself, one being with my next door neighbor. We used to have an uncle visiting us often, we, as kids, used to look forward for his arrival, for the prize of getting a ride on his ex faugi bull till the next junction. We used feel like being in heaven.
Years passed, joined an engineering college in Kerala. Three bulls were there as well. One was with the junior most profs in college, a rugged one was there with one of our seniors. The third one belonged to a person who stayed behind the college. He used to ride his bull at a steady speed or 35 kmph or so, without missing a single beat, holding the bike only with his right hand with an occasional visit of the left hand when in dire need of shifting the gear. It used to be a sight to behold.
After passing out of college, I joined a small construction firm in my home town, to my envy, my senior in the firm too had a bull, we used to call it the 'company bull'. I used to dream of owning one at some point in time. Well, I believe, every kid in Kerala has some memory of a bull in some form.
Fast forwarding couple of years, I got relocated to Bangalore in the year 2000, picked my first bike, it was a Fiero. I used it for about 5+ Years. Around 2005 another mallu joined my firm, he was looking forward for owning a Bull, he casually asked me whether I would also be interested in buying one as well.
Visited Teknik Motors in CMH Road with my fried the next day, it was an off the shelf purchase, a black Thunderbird, got delivery in 2 days flat. It soon became my daily commute vehicle. My better half also used to like the peaceful ride it used to provide. Couple of years back I had a very bad patch financially, bull proved to be a very good companion during that time as well, I had to sell it to a friend. The moment I sold it off I started missing my bull. I always wanted to own a regular bull, so thought I could always buy one when the shore is clear.
Last year, on an impulsive move, I visited the Royal Enfield brand showroom near Jayadeva hospital on 7th April 2012 and paid the booking amount, 5K, they promised delivery of my Classic 500 Black in 6 - 8 month’s time.
I believe it was my mistake to book with the Brand Showroom. Though I never had any trouble with Teknik and I had been extremely happy with the service provided by them, I decided to go ahead with booking my vehicle with Brand showroom as I expected a better experience from them along with a short waiting period. I believe I should have done my homework better. I also had the option of going for a CBR or a Duke, but decided to go for the bull as I was not looking forward for a flashy one.
I started calling them around August, I used to call them every fortnight or so. Around September they enquired whether I would be going for finance options, if else keep the money ready. In early October I was told I am ninth in line, towards the end of October I was told that there are only four or so ahead of me. But after this I started getting very vague responses, usually on the boundary of being rude, usual responce being the concerned person is not around at this moment, try again later. This repeated few times, then I stopped calling as it was more than frustrating and also thought they would call when the booking is due.
Couple of weeks back, I called them again, they called me back and asked me to visit showroom and make the payment, it was on a Saturday afternoon. I visited them on next Monday, I was kept waiting for over an hour with vague statements. After an hour I was asked to meet the store manager. He started asking questions like who called me, what time I was called, what was told etc. I kind of got the sense that this is another of their tactics, he might not be interested in giving me the bike at that point in time. He finally told me he do not have a bike to give, he should be able to give one during the first week of April. I was completely fine with approach, there was no harm in waiting for additional one week if I could wait for one complete year. But that too has passed now.
Meantime I raised this with the Twitter account of Royal Enfield, they asked me for details, which was duly provided, but ended up getting a a standard response, your email was escalated to concerned department, you shall hear from us soon. This happened 5 days back.
I have couple of questions
a. Isn’t this an insane wait for a bike? I have crossed over an year on this booking.
b. How do they maintain the booking seniority, I was told about people who booked after me and got bike from the same showroom. Arent there any internal audits? I know I am stupid.
c. They mentioned during the conversation that my bike was due on Feb 19th, I didnt take their call. As a point of fact, they had collected mobile number, email address and postal address as part of the booking procedure. Does their responsibility of intimating about the maturity of a booking end with a missed call, aren't they not aware about options like SMS, email or a normal snail mail.
d. Now that I have 'escalated' this and also wrote this story in TBHP, what is the guaranty that I would not be given a lemon, especially as we have thread on Classic 500 running with over 200 pages? I do not dream on ending up like being like Harish and his Skoda. I am confused.
Apologies, it was a long post. Your views are most welcome. |