[Aditya]

While Tata Motors gears up to introduce the Zest compact sedan and Bolt hatchback in the market, it is also working on improving sales and service experience. The company is revamping and modernising its dealership and service network and employing and training personnel to ensure that its customers are satisfied.

Link to Team-BHP News Article

Tata Motors is also developing a service application that will improve customer experience at service centres by digitalisation. The aim of the Tata Motors Service Application (TMSA) will be to eliminate physical filling up service details on a paper job card. Instead, service advisors will use VTAB Android tablets, which would help in reducing the time period considerably.

The VTAB will come pre-loaded with TMSA and will be connected to a server and printer. When a vehicle comes to the service centre for the first time, the service advisor will fill in the details of the vehicle and the owner. The application then selects the relevant vehicle and the service advisor can fill in other details such as customer's complaints, fuel quantity and vehicle inventory (tool kit, music system, etc.).

Most of the data is available via drop down menus and the service advisor will select the jobs that need to be addressed after the customer's confirmation, prepares a digital job card with job codes, his consent and customer's signature. A printed copy of the card is then handed over to the customer. The entire process should take 5 minutes compared to the current 15-20 minutes.

TMSA will also bring more transparency into the entire system and the hassles like the loss of a job card will be avoided. The application can also work offline and in case the tablet is not connected to the server, job car can still be created and synchronised with the system later.

The Zest and Bolt are very important products for Tata Motors, which has been lagging behind rivals like Maruti Suzuki, Honda and Hyundai. The company is making every effort to ensure that its two new offerings and its dealership and service network meet all expectations.

Source: Motorbeam

[zenren]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Most of the data is available via drop down menus and the service advisor will select the jobs that need to be addressed after the customer's confirmation, prepares a digital job card with job codes, his consent and customer's signature. A printed copy of the card is then handed over to the customer. The entire process should take 5 minutes compared to the current 15-20 minutes.

Looks like some techie-MBA has just joined and has decided to go on an automation spree. For most of the folks, it is faster to write down something than to type it into specific fields of a form in a tablet or smartphone.

I just hope this would not lead to the service advisor refusing to accept a complaint from the customer saying "Sorry sir, that complaint is not available in our drop down list and cannot be accepted"

There is no way anyone can document all the possible complaints that a customer could come up with into a drop down list. Regular service items can be included but those can be mentioned as a single line item as well.

Another issue would be a delay in generating the bills citing a faulty internet connection: "Sir, we are done but the internet connection is not working. Please wait till it comes back so that we can generate the bill."

[teamveevee]

Originally Posted by zenren

There is no way anyone can document all the possible complaints that a customer could come up with into a drop down list. Regular service items can be included but those can be mentioned as a single line item as well.

Developed countries similar applications are in use for a long time. Complains will be all free form text, i assume the complaint category will be more of drop down. I have seen abrorad, the technician also has a tablet or computer and he/she need to enter comments once the work is completed. When you bring in your vehicle, the service adviser knows exactly what has done on this car in the past and when and so does the technician.

[GrammarNazi]

Awesome move! Considering my last mail to CustomerCare wasn't even replied to, this IMO will streamline complaints.

Since the past 3 years I'd been repeating over Twitter/FB/T-BHP that they need to figure a way to improve post-service feedback collection.

I had briefly discussed such a system with (late) Mr. Karl Slym, (Actually I asked for them to simply create a Google Form for the initial experimental purpose, then put a full fledged system in place so customers can give feedback more effectively).

Looks like Tata has been listening to the consumers ideas & wishes!

Originally Posted by zenren

Looks like some techie-MBA has just joined and has decided to go on an automation spree....

Given that TaMo can get the software support system from TCS, this shouldn't be a big deal for them.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by teamveevee

Developed countries similar applications are in use for a long time. Complains will be all free form text, i assume the complaint category will be more of drop down. I have seen abrorad, the technician also has a tablet or computer and he/she need to enter comments once the work is completed. When you bring in your vehicle, the service adviser knows exactly what has done on this car in the past and when and so does the technician.

I was primarily taking a stab at the Tata's claim of reducing the time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes via this automation. With free text fields which is how it should be, it wouldn't really be leading to much time savings but there would be greater transparency if everything works the way it should. However, having seen similar CRM systems in others fields and how they end up being used in the Indian context, I'll reserve my praise till they actually get it implemented by the dealers and the TASS folks properly. If 50% of the mandatory fields are just "..." or "NA", then it wouldn't really bring around the effect it currently promises, though a lot of cases end up in that fashion when time is a constraint.

[phamilyman]

This has been operational in big maruti A.S.S since 2+ years now and works just fine - whether it be big ones like Apra or Maruti Service Masters. Its a good idea IMHO - except they still use paper job cards. I'm not sure of how the process works and whether its really that fast.

Personally, it doesn't impact my satisfaction with the service one bit.

[MaxTorque]

Looks like Tata is making baby steps to catch up with the competition. Wish them all the best. Now the user friendlyness of this initiative will be debatable.

Filling the same data everytime we visit the service center is quite boring. Whenever I visit the my car for service, I have to fill the same details on the form. I used to scribble some thing on the form, except the mobile number. I wonder, why they can't give us a pre-filled form?

[rohansachar]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Personally, it doesn't impact my satisfaction with the service one bit.

Agreed, but I believe this is the starting point. I have seen a change in the TM service centers over the years from how the quality of service was when I had the Indica to improvements with my Manza. I personally was very happy for a duration of 4 years [2 years original + 2 years extended warranty].