[Varun_G]

My Dad owns a 2017 Baleno Alpha (P) and is based out of a hill station in Rajasthan (not too hard to guess). The nearest service center is almost 40-45 KMs away and he has to plan out an entire day to get this done. Listing down the details below of how the events unfolded on the service day:

He had booked a service appointment days ago and since the weather isn't the best recently, he called the center again to avoid any last minute surprises after making the long drive!

Strike 1: The SA confirmed he can drive down and avail the service today. After reaching the center, the SA informed him that the car cannot be washed as half the staff isn't available but the other tune ups can be done.

Strike 2: He had inquired earlier if an internal TPMS can be installed by them to which they said yes. On giving the TPMS kit to the SA, he said they cannot do it and need to go to a car balancing store to get it done but they still did the wheel balancing without asking and added those charges to the final invoice.

Strike 3: After driving for a couple of KMs, Dad noticed the central arm rest has been broken during service and he called the center to complaint about it but the call went unanswered. He drove back to the center to show them the arm rest and they simply refused to accept their mistake. On the contrary, the SA behaved very rudely and told him to take up the matter with the showroom manager (who was on leave) as he will be leaving for another job soon. As it was getting late and it's not advisable to drive late on hilly roads under this weather, Dad had to leave towards home.

After reaching home, when we were talking on the phone, he mentioned the entire incident to me and I immediately suggested to take up the matter with Nexa Customer Care. I will be traveling to home next week so he said to wait for a week to file the complaint but I advised him to not wait and sent him the contact details for Nexa customer care. On contacting the Nexa customer care, an immediate call back was arranged from the showroom manager and the Regional Manager apologizing for the incident. They also got the SA in question on a call with Dad and let the conversation happen between both of them and finally he owned up the mistake and apologized. The showroom manager offered to replace the damaged part on his next visit and the matter was finally closed. A few observations from this incident:

• A lot of Indian consumers especially the older generation inspite of being educated are not aware about the consumer rights and hesitate to escalate the matter to higher authorities. Given the right guidance and push, they can take things forward
• Since most of us work away from home, the onus is on the younger generation to educate our parents/relatives about these channels - My Dad follows TBHP now
• Car Brands are taking the complaints seriously and necessary action is taken immediately for customer satisfaction - A similar incident with Hyundai was recorded from my neighbor in Bangalore
• One of the BHPians had posted a live stream of his car service. I think this should become the industry norm to avoid such bad experiences in the future

[aargee]

Originally Posted by Varun_G

A lot of Indian consumers especially the older generation inspite of being educated are not aware about the consumer rights and hesitate to escalate the matter to higher authorities. Given the right guidance and push, they can take things forward

Sir, this happens only with Maruti & Nexa in this country, may be with Hyundai as well. Try VW or Skoda which would be considered a miraculous experience. No one takes customer's complaints seriously other than MSIL in this country; no not even Domino's.

Originally Posted by Varun_G

One of the BHPians had posted a live stream of his car service. I think this should become the industry norm to avoid such bad experiences in the future

That was a specific dealer, not from manufacturer. If manufacturer implements this, the cost of servicing would certainly shoot up.

[SideView]

Originally Posted by aargee

Sir, this happens only with Maruti & Nexa in this country, may be with Hyundai as well. Try VW or Skoda which would be considered a miraculous experience. No one takes customer's complaints seriously other than MSIL in this country; no not even Domino's.

Rightly said. This is why MSIL is still leading the sales charts even though there are better/safer vehicles out there.

Anything I write or call to customer care for Nissan just get re-routed to dealer. ( this was 2 years back not sure if it has changed with new MD)

[Nithesh_M]

Originally Posted by Varun_G

[*]One of the BHPians had posted a live stream of his car service. I think this should become the industry norm to avoid such bad experiences in the future[/list]

I got this message to update my Hyundai Mobility Membership App. Looks like Hyundai has begun livestream services for customers. Saw this in their linked sms to me.

[Meph1st0]

Originally Posted by Varun_G

• Car Brands are taking the complaints seriously and necessary action is taken immediately for customer satisfaction.

Nobody takes complaints as seriously as Maruti/Nexa. This is what one has to appreciate despite having so many sales/outlets. I would like to mention an incident along similar lines. I had booked Baleno in 2016 but decided to cancel after a few days. The SA did not receive my call for 3 days nor respond to my messages. I casually wrote an email to NEXA customer care and within one hour, I got a call from the same SA apologizing and asking me to collect the cheque.

[GTO]

Mod Note: Thread moved to the dealerships section. Thanks for sharing!

. Great post. There is a reason why Maruti has 50% of the market, yet just <5% of customer complaints on this forum and otherwise. When was the last time you spoke to an unhappy Maruti owner? Compare that to brands like Skoda or Nissan who have 1 - 2% market-share but a majority of customer complaints!

OEMs have to keep a tight grip on dealers. Without monitoring, there is no customer service. Quality is never arrived at by accident.

[KPR]

Originally Posted by GTO

When was the last time you spoke to an unhappy Maruti owner?

Well said. I'm a happy MS owner. When I did servicing of my Alto this Sunday at Arena I was treated equal like owner of any other MS car like an Ertiga or Brezza. No differentiation there

[aargee]

Would like to add a recent incident here:

Got my car serviced at Nexa on 11-Oct & once the car was parked in garage after service, haven't moved it an inch other than biweekly start for charging the battery.

On 1-Nov, we were listening to some music along with AC during our routine idling the car, which is when we noticed the cap of the AC knob was missing.



Called up the SA, told this was missing & we're observing it only now as we don't take the car & sent them the pictures. SA asked to check if it had fallen anywhere in the car & I confirmed we couldn't. They said they'll check the video recording of the servicing based on which they'll replace the cap.

Next day, a person came down from Nexa to replace the cap!! I think the cap must be worth no more than Rs. 10-15 & I agree the time, money & effort was no worth it, but they did it anyway

[hrman]

Thanks for posting. One of the reasons why probably my next car will be from the Maruti stable. Although the build quality sucks in comparison to VW/Skoda, its customer service wins hands down.
As GTO posted, I cannot even in my wildest dreams imagine if it were VW/Skoda, how they would have handled it.

MSIL deserves to be the market leader and is doing everything it can to keep it up. More share to them.

[Maverick Avi]

Maruti's customer service has also declined drastically over the years but it still is better than most out there. One of the reasons can be attributed to the fact that their sales are high and hence dealers must be better off selling their cars rather than the competitors. Hence company is in a position to have a tight leash on them and set things straight in case of such complaints.

[EshanS]

MSIL takes customer feedback as its top priority.

During the recall for the ISG unit in my Ciaz, the billing was taking time to process because the part scanning was failing multiple times. However, around 6.30 pm the floor manager came up to me and said that it's getting late, we have your details you can leave home in your car since the job has been done and we will get in touch with you the next day for billing (I had picked up a few shampoos, cleaners, and other accessories).

The next day the billing guy calls sends the QR code for online payment and I'm done.

The next day to that, the customer care calls to know my experience on job card (recall), I tell her the entire situation which went super hassle-free but some issue was there for billing. However, I wasn't waiting for like hours it was in the time denoted before taking the car for part replacement. Yet she apologizes and says we are sorry for the billing issue, however, if you can drop your car we will give you a free interior/exterior wash. I'm like what just happened? Dumbstruck but that's how excellent their service is.

[fiat_tarun]

While the customer car experience was good in this case, the issue should not have happened in the first place. How many customers will go through the process of complaining and getting a resolution ?

I have seen the service experience going down over the years with Maruti, and the reason is there are just too many vehicles. My dad had an Ertiga and at every service they would not do some of the tasks properly and we had to call the GM to get it fixed. In this case we personally knew the GM and we were not comfortable escalating every time to get a proper job done. My folks were so fed up with this 'rushed' experience at Maruti, they didn't even want to look at the Ignis and bought a Tiago when hatch shopping for mom.

The Alto with me in Pune had an issue with the windshield washer for which I went to the service centre and they took forever to attend to me (the 10 minutes sir kept extending). I finally had to give them a dressing after which suddenly things started moving.

My other regular experience has been primarily with Ford where I felt I was given so much more attention and time and I didn't need to escalate at all.

In short I think Maruti needs to ensure the dealer experience stays consistently good so escalations are not required to get the work done.

[armaan_singh]

I bought an S presso last year as a second car for the home, it was my first tryst with Maruti since our esteem days in the late 90s.
Since day 1 the Bluetooth mic seemed faulty and the person on the other line heard a muffled voice.

I picked it up with them on the first service itself, and they promptly had it replaced but the problem remained. I recall loosing my cool at the service advisor because it was my fourth trip for the same issue which refused to get fixed.
He eventually took me to the floor manager and he related the entire incident to his boss, while stating that he had the part replaced.
The floor manager in one swift line summed up the entire incident, he asked the advisor “you changed the part but did you solve the problem” ?
2 days later the OEM came to my place and replaced the part again, it improved slightly but not completely to my liking. I lost the patience to deal with it after that, but it really made me admire Maruti more after that, they’re market leaders yet such experts at customer service. That speaks volumes while our good friends over at Honda, term every fault of theirs as Japanese quality and the lack of our ability to understand the said quality.

[Leoshashi]

Originally Posted by aargee

Next day, a person came down from Nexa to replace the cap!! I think the cap must be worth no more than Rs. 10-15 & I agree the time, money & effort was no worth it, but they did it anyway

I consider you lucky, because there is no separate knob available for these panels. They come as a single panel. Either you got back your knob, or they gave it from some other car, hopefully total loss.

[Neversaygbye]

Originally Posted by aargee

Sir, this happens only with Maruti & Nexa in this country, may be with Hyundai as well. Try VW or Skoda which would be considered a miraculous experience. No one takes customer's complaints seriously other than MSIL in this country; no not even Domino's.

I cannot speak about VW or Skoda but I can tell you that the much criticized Tata A.S.S. has also improved by leaps and bounds in recent times, at least in Calcutta.

Back in October I had visited my Tata ASC T.C. Motors Rajarhat for changing the timing chain of my Vista and also asked them to check out the steering while they were at it as it seemed to be a bit hard. When I got back the car, I found that the steering mounted controls were no longer working, even though everything else had been fixed, including the tightness in the steering.

Called up the SA and told him that this problem was not there earlier and it must be because of some goof up at their end and he agreed to their fault and asked me to bring the car to have it fixed FOC, which is what they did, with no questions asked.

So even a Tata ASC is capable of handling a service deficiency in the right way, without the need for an escalation to Tata Motors, which is what I would have done had they not accepted their fault and fixed it without any further ado.