[MaxTorque]

Originally Posted by adityasiera

Well the biggest impact of T-bhp is Db sir and the likes of him.

Another power of T-bhp. Driver seat height adjust and rear defogger are standard across all models of Honda Brio from now on.

A small correction, Honda Brio EMT and EXMT models don't have Defogger and Height adjuster..

[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by girishglg

...Though it may be a bit here, but the companies that are most probably not following TBHP are the Tatas. Come on there are umpteen number of threads of how they can improve and load of feedback on the Nano, not sure if anyone reads up even some of them.
I just hope that I am wrong and not beating a here but it would be interesting to know if they actually do...

Tata's are definitely following T-Bhp very closely. Moreover they're all ears even if we randomly tweet them suggestions and queries and even special requests. Mr.Karl Slym also replied to a suggestion I made to him on twitter. They are taking even the smallest of things very seriously. I suggested they add a Push Start/Stop button in Nano to help shed its 'el cheapo' image and Karl Slym himself replied positively about being able to provide ot as an accessory and arranged for the regional manager to call me. They assured me the warranty will stay intact even if wires are cut or sliced.

Obviously they're depressed, they're selling <1000 units of what they budgeted/anticipated would sell >20,000/month (Nano). Same goes with almost all of their other cars. If they made the mistake of choosing the wrong vendors, atleast they should rectify that by providing adequate warranty (that enables their product to compete with industry leaders) to build confidence.

If they provide 2L kms warranty for Aria and THEN place it against the Innova, it makes sense. Very few then, would hesitate before buying their products. The money they spend on such warranty would be like an investment to retain customer confidence, atleast until they develop an extremely reliable product.

Else how would people have confidence in their newer, quite reliable products? Like this April, Safari+Storme have sold only ~730 units whereas Duster sold >5300 units. 7 times as much. Even after all these positive reviews and adverts of Storme. Even though the interiors are IMHO much better than Dusters'.

[DieselAddikt]

I am not sure about auto companies. But Popular Maruti (Kerala) are for sure relying on our threads for a lot of information on product feedback/niggles and even solutions. A friend of mine working for them told this to me a couple of years back. Way to go !! And a special thanks to the moderators for keeping this place nice and clean.

[ACM]

While most Auto Vendors have figured out the importance of TBHP as a feedback and improvement mechanism, as well as in some ways a medium to market themselves through their product performance. There is another side to it as well.

While there are quite a few manufacturers of vehicles and everything automotive who take us seriously, and possibly none car really afford to ignore us. There are also those who due to higher -ve feedback about their product simply seem to close their eyes to what is being written about them. It is like it is too strong a medicine especially in the short term. Atleast Skoda seems to have behaved in that manner, at time some others as well.

The customer does benefit a lot due to awareness and having a forum to run to for advice and also in some ways get a resolution to the complains by going public with it. A post on FB can get lost but here every relevant post is noticed and commented upon the manufacturers cannot afford to ignore this forum.

GM is one company that has seemed oblivious to everything on this forum and we really don't see the company making changes in the India offerings basis the feedback. Maybe it is also a function of the quality of the trackers in various companies.

TATA seems to want to react and offer the first line contact immediately but then after that every one is back to their routine tasks and nothing really moves fast. M&M on the other hand does seem to follow TATA in the support part on a similar plain but does take design and other feedback more seriously it appear. Yes TATA too would have people tacking and documenting all the feedback from the forum but it is what they do with it that seems to be too slow to be effective.

[TheTeacher]

I was at a private event a week ago. First met with a Castrol VP of marketing, and casually inquired if he was aware of TBHP. Immediate response "Of Course! They're very important" and so on. Went on to say they monitor TBHP a lot.

Asked the same question of Karl Slym, and got the same answer. Plus he mentioned that he was on Twitter and trying to stay on top of it.

Is TBHP a force to reckon with in India? Absolutely no doubt about it.

[arjab]

Everyone in the Indian auto industry is now following T-Bhp.
They love us (when we praise) their products & services or hate us (when we criticize) their cars - but overall they can never ignore us

T-Bhp is possibly the best thing that could have happened to the Indian auto Customer. Especially in India where for simple things related to our daily lives we have to run from pillar to post trying to "get things done" which should have been done naturally anyways!

Cheers to T-Bhp and our great bunch of moderators ! Let us all raise the bar further in the coming years

[av8er]

Mahindra also keeps a close eye here. I was called for a test drive of the XUV500 way before it was launched to test its seats and its comfort, it was codenamed the W201 or something like that then.

No one told me not to click pictures and a friend and I took some pictures of the covered vehicle which we had posted on team-bhp and then about 2 weeks later someone called me from Mahindra asking me to remove the pics as it was confidential. The last conversation we had the guy was almost kinda threatening but in a nice soft way saying something like 'we will have to take action'. I tried contacting the moderators but no one replied and I just left it and soon after they also stopped calling me.

[apachelongbow]

Social media is now a powerful tool for all companies. Car companies cannot ignore the power of collective voice, and the power of influencing opinions that websites like ours have. For example see the horror stories regarding Skoda and how many people have mentioned, they are not considering Skoda cars anymore.
On the flip side, how many of our members belong to rural India? For lot of companies we are a small elite group of English speaking city dwellers, how much segment of a market we and our likes make?
IMHO If our website had regional language and hindi forums, then they would take a far more serious view of whats being discussed here.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

how many of our members belong to rural India? For lot of companies we are a small elite group of English speaking city dwellers, how much segment of a market we and our likes make?

Incidentally, these 'small elite group of English speaking' population contributes or has influence over a big chunk of sales for companies except Maruti, Hyundai, Mahindra, Toyota and Tata. Most other companies have not expanded their dealer and service networks outside Tier 2 cities and hence it is clear that they are actually targeting the city dwellers and not rural India. That is one reason why we see Bolero on the top of sales charts every month. With the condition of roads in rural India, no car without a huge GC is motorable across villages and Bolero doesn't really have a reliable alternative at similar price point. So the 'city dwellers' is not a small fraction for most of these players.

Again, most rural population who can afford a premium segment car would certainly be living in a greater luxury than the city dwellers and having all facilities that we have. I've a lot of friends from rural areas who are well educated, at least in the current generation.

[apachelongbow]

Originally Posted by zenren

Incidentally, these 'small elite group of English speaking' population contributes or has influence over a big chunk of sales for companies except Maruti, Hyundai, Mahindra, Toyota and Tata. Most other companies have not expanded their dealer and service networks outside Tier 2 cities and hence it is clear that they are actually targeting the city dwellers and not rural India. That is one reason why we see Bolero on the top of sales charts every month. With the condition of roads in rural India, no car without a huge GC is motorable across villages and Bolero doesn't really have a reliable alternative at similar price point. So the 'city dwellers' is not a small fraction for most of these players.

Again, most rural population who can afford a premium segment car would certainly be living in a greater luxury than the city dwellers and having all facilities that we have. I've a lot of friends from rural areas who are well educated, at least in the current generation.

Agreed! However as most of our members in marketing and sales would agree, the next big push/flip/thrust in almost all product companies is rural India. FMGC (Fast moving consumer goods) have already made inroads into selling in 'Bharat' With increasing disposable incomes and savings, rural India is today in a good position to buy even high end cars.
The usage of these cars is quite different IMO from what we city dwellers use them for. What rural India needs apart from a comfortable luxurious ride, is reliability, ability to multi task and traverse non existent roads.
OT apart, if we had a forum which was multi lingual, for example in major regional languages and Hindi apart from English, the base of members would be far wider, there by more reach and more collective suggestion powers to the car makers.
If today a Skoda, VW, Audi don't bother to listen to rural India, they would be forced to do in say in the next 5 years. This almost arrogant superiority of thinking they can get infinite growth only in 5 metros is frankly quite silly.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Agreed! However as most of our members in marketing and sales would agree, the next big push/flip/thrust in almost all product companies is rural India. FMGC (Fast moving consumer goods) have already made inroads into selling in 'Bharat' With increasing disposable incomes and savings, rural India is today in a good position to buy even high end cars.
The usage of these cars is quite different IMO from what we city dwellers use them for. What rural India needs apart from a comfortable luxurious ride, is reliability, ability to multi task and traverse non existent roads.
OT apart, if we had a forum which was multi lingual, for example in major regional languages and Hindi apart from English, the base of members would be far wider, there by more reach and more collective suggestion powers to the car makers.
If today a Skoda, VW, Audi don't bother to listen to rural India, they would be forced to do in say in the next 5 years. This almost arrogant superiority of thinking they can get infinite growth only in 5 metros is frankly quite silly.

The usage of cars in rural areas is quite similar to what it is in an urban setting, rural areas have had better roads in the last few years than they ever had. We use a new Fiesta in Kerala, the only mud road we have to travel over is about half a kilometre to the tarred main road. The Bolero is handy in monsoon when the water floods the roads near streams and paddy fields, flooding happens in major cities too, so really no difference.

Team-bhp will not be restricted to urban users alone as plenty of rural areas have broadband and the new generation is tech savvy. The marketing blitz in regional newspapers has made plenty of brand snobs as well. Plenty of members in Bangalore, like me, have a rural/small town connection, and yes we recommend family members to go through posts here before they make a choice.

The forum being available in other languages shouldn't hurt, but right now sticking to English is the path of least resistance.

[EagleEye]

Originally Posted by TheTeacher

I was at a private event a week ago. First met with a Castrol VP of marketing, and casually inquired if he was aware of TBHP. Immediate response "Of Course! They're very important" and so on. Went on to say they monitor TBHP a lot.

I can't say the same for some of our national oil companies.
They aren't even aware that there is a forum like this.

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

OT apart, if we had a forum which was multi lingual, for example in major regional languages and Hindi apart from English, the base of members would be far wider, there by more reach and more collective suggestion powers to the car makers.

Might be slightly OT discussing this here, but this is a silly idea. Firstly there should be one common language for discussion - otherwise the same thing will be discussed again and again in different languages and still it might be missed by someone who is following some other language.
Secondly, if I speak and write in three languages, do you expect me to post my views/opinions/user reviews in three languages separately to cater to all the possible audiences?
Thirdly - most internet savvy people, whether they live in urban or rural areas are at least familiar enough using English to type and read as English is the primary language found everywhere on the internet.
Fourthly - There is Google Translate for the rare few who are internet savvy and still don't know English. Our mods are kind enough to correct grammatical errors in most posts if they convey some value to readers otherwise.

[don_carmaster]

Originally Posted by EagleEye

Might be slightly OT discussing this here, but this is a silly idea. Firstly there should be one common language for discussion - otherwise the same thing will be discussed again and again in different languages and still it might be missed by someone who is following some other language.
Secondly, if I speak and write in three languages, do you expect me to post my views/opinions/user reviews in three languages separately to cater to all the possible audiences?
Thirdly - most internet savvy people, whether they live in urban or rural areas are at least familiar enough using English to type and read as English is the primary language found everywhere on the internet.
Fourthly - There is Google Translate for the rare few who are internet savvy and still don't know English. Our mods are kind enough to correct grammatical errors in most posts if they convey some value to readers otherwise.

+1 to that
I had a similar chaos story coming up to my mind when I read the need of the different languages post

It will be more of a bane than boon

Moreover, keeping english as the standard language which also is the link language across the world adds homogenity and international appeal to what is being discussed.


Coming back to the main header
I can vouch for not only Mahindra & Mahindra following teambhp but their dealerships as well

For a mahindra dealership called as Koncept mahindra
I know the CEO of the NCR region
He himself is an auto enthusiast and is an ardent follower of Mr. Behram Dhabar

As he told me, every morning he takes two meetings, One with the sales exectuvies and the other with the service advisors.

In both of the meetings, there is some stipulated time where he discusses Tbhp forums and asks his executives if they are aware of a certain issue being reported here just to cross-check

And then expects them to provide a viable solution, so that they are ready if they get to deal with such a situation.

Instances like these build the trust and hence I regularly give my Xylo to them for any issue I face.

Sometimes they do get slothy, but a pang from the top executives ensures everything runs smooth thereafter.!

Thanks

[sridhar-v]

Looks like Skoda is not following T-BHP or have decided to ignore it. Particularly amazing considering the damage HarishV's experience has done to their image.

Talk of ultimate head in the sand approach.

[INNOVATOR]

Originally Posted by soonya

That's nice to hear. The power of community! And what a community! A community that is self-managed, democratic and well managed. What more could an auto company ask for?

They are getting free, honest and erudite feedback without spending a penny!

Ain't that cool? Ain't it time that they 'pay' for it to this community

The moment they pay for the community, it ceases to be a "community" in the true sense of the term and becomes more of a company organ. Lets keep the dough out of it
I'm sure we can raise enough funds launching goodies like the stickers and key-chains to keep the community afloat.
I would hate to see biased reviews or worse still, ad-news, on the forum
It is an enthusiast's hangout, lets keep it that way
If Auto companies do benefit from the erudite and honest feedback from this forum, and more so, act upon this feedback, it only comes back to the forum in the form of better cars.
I may be a purist but that's just me - Live Cars - Love Cars