[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by GTO

Question is, can Nissan do better now that it's at the helm of affairs? Only time will tell, I guess. At the end of the day, the dealerships are the same. Their attitude is far from customer-centric. The people remain the same....will reporting to Nissan instead of Hover change their professionalism? I hope so. Nissan is going to have to be very, very strict & disciplinarian (think, Maruti levels) with its dealerships.

GTO, will be waiting for your next service report on your Sunny! Do let us know if you feel there is any difference!

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Safety is Param

After all, it's a good idea to append your Father's name unless the kid has established a name for himself (this reply is not in your context, but to gain momentum by leveraging the Parent company's name)

By that same reasoning, shouldn't all Nissan ads carry Renault logo or reference since Nissan is owned by Renault?

Its a good idea to append the parent's name if they are famous. It is an even better idea to discard the parent's full name from your name if the parent is famous for wrong reasons! Thanks to Hover, Nissan name in India is not where it should be.

[rdhawan15]

Originally Posted by GTO

Question is, can Nissan do better now that it's at the helm of affairs? Only time will tell, I guess. At the end of the day, the dealerships are the same. Their attitude is far from customer-centric. The people remain the same....will reporting to Nissan instead of Hover change their professionalism? I hope so. Nissan is going to have to be very, very strict & disciplinarian (think, Maruti levels) with its dealerships.

I feel that in the long-term, customer interests will be served much better with Nissan being at the helm. Dealers will be aware of the fact that the company is directly involved with the service and support and hence the scope of mischief-making on dealers' part will be reduced considerably. The fact that the final escalation point will be Nissan should make dealers toe the line, and you have rightly pointed out about a similar thing in Maruti.

More than anything else, this does prove that Nissan is in the race for a long time in India. It should improve existing customers' confidence and help the potential customers in taking thoughtful buying decisions.

[Safety is Param]

Originally Posted by zenren

By that same reasoning, shouldn't all Nissan ads carry Renault logo or reference since Nissan is owned by Renault?

I would say, No - for 2 reasons -

1) Nissan is not owned by Renault. They are into an alliance.

2) Nissan and Renault have separate dealerships. Datsun is sold at Nissan Dealerships.

Furthermore -

a) People who don't read TBhp, or for that matter, any other automobile forums, are unlikely to relate Datsun to a sub-brand of a major brand.

b) I don't have any statistics at hand, but I am sure that the number of people watching TV commercials easily outnumber those visiting automobile forums.

I think, if Datsun needs to reach out to a wider audience, they have to address potential customers in a) & b) above.

My thought of Nissan branding in Datsun commercials (not vehicle badging) stems from these thoughts.

And I was glad when I saw a Datsun test drive vehicle near UB City 2 days back. The decals clearly mentioned - "By Nissan"

Its a good idea to append the parent's name if they are famous.

Correct; and NISSAN is famous.

It is an even better idea to discard the parent's full name from your name if the parent is famous for wrong reasons! Thanks to Hover, Nissan name in India is not where it should be.

When I bought the SUNNY last year, I didn't even know what Hover was. The Sales team in their conversations, the documents with all sorts of logos on them, the Service Centre, etc. didn't have any mention of Hover.

It was on TBhp that I learnt about Hover's existence.

I think whatever negative or positive effect Hover had on NISSAN was restricted at the Dealer level. As a customer I haven't faced any challenges due to their sour alliance.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Safety is Param

When I bought the SUNNY last year, I didn't even know what Hover was. The Sales team in their conversations, the documents with all sorts of logos on them, the Service Centre, etc. didn't have any mention of Hover.

It was on TBhp that I learnt about Hover's existence.

Precisely my point. Most customers doesn't know about Hover's existence and hence blames Nissan for all the goof ups that Hover does. This includes delivery delays, not honouring warranty claims and poor service standards just to name a few that were associated with the Nissan dealerships across India.

I think whatever negative or positive effect Hover had on NISSAN was restricted at the Dealer level.

If these issues were only between Hover and dealers and not impacting customers, I don't think we would have known about it even in TBHP. This is a community of the end customers, not dealers. It wouldn't have been discussed in TBHP if customers were not impacted at all.

As a customer I haven't faced any challenges due to their sour alliance.

If all Nissan customers and prospective customers were as happy as you are, Hover would still be in partnership with Nissan. So we can safely assume that you are part of a minority rather than a majority.

[terra85]

This business of selling both Nissan and Datsun cars in the same showroom may not be huge hit, firstly for the whole of bangalore there are only 2 dealerships and it wont get them much attention and they desperately need to build them up to get it close to Maruti,Hyundai numbers.Secondly the top end Datsun is priced too close to the active variant of Micra. Nissan should have waited a few months sorted out their dealer issues and then lauched the Datsun brand with atleast a dedicated showroom. Despite Nissan being there for a longer time they feel Renault is a more established brand atleast here in Bangalore due to better accessibility of their showrooms..

[GTO]

Well, well, well...apparently the Hover morons were chosen over TVS due to Carlos Ghosn!

Two days before Nissan's executive committee was due to formalise the choice of a company called TVS as a partner for sales and marketing in India, Ghosn threw his weight behind a different firm: Hover Automotive India Pvt Ltd, four company sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Hover had been a candidate but was knocked out of the running because it had been deemed insufficiently experienced in automotive distribution and marketing, they said. However, its founder and chairman, Moez Mangalji, was a close family friend of Ghosn's, the sources added.

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