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According to a media report, Tata Motors is planning a large-scale upgrade of its sales network. The overhaul will take place over the next 1 year as the carmaker prepares to launch new products into the market.



The upgrades will focus on improving the ambience of the showrooms, implementing new technologies and enhancing the workforce across all dealerships. Dealerships will have a lounge with Wi-Fi connectivity.

Tata plans to setup 2,000 dealerships by 2021-22. These will utilize augmented reality and virtual reality platforms based on 4G and 5G technologies to offer a virtual showroom experience to customers.

Tata Motors is also planning to upgrade its workshops. The carmaker is reportedly in the process of hiring more than 800 sales executives ahead of the launch of the Harrier SUV.

Source: Economic Times

Link to Team-BHP News

This is a much asked for improvement, desired from all customers. Really long pending. Customers are seldom attended to, and Salespeople often look away or are busy on the phone. Home is where the money is, and Tata can really rake in the moolah right here in India - since the products are all coming together nicely. I have no complaints regarding service but hear about one of two erring dealers/service partners regularly on the Nexonites, Bangalore WhatsApp.

Wish they also improve their service.

Biggest worry for potential customers of Harrier would be whether they would be able to get 'proper' service of their vehicle or would it be treated like any other Sumo or Indica

As for me for these wonderful products to succeed, Tata motors needs to work upon the improvement in the service levels. We have come across all the new car test drive reports where the service part has been mentioned as "Hit or Miss" type of scenario. Any customer(myself included) purchasing a new car is hesitant as he has this very important aspect at the back of his mind. The horror stories of service of Skoda and Volkswagen are known to almost all the members of this forum. Nobody would want to fall in the same league after buying one such Tata car.

An opportune time too! Till just a couple of years back, Tata's product line was old & full of slow sellers. Now, the volumes are there, products are fresh and promising new ones are on the way (including the Harrier). With this situation, Tata can actually ask the dealerships to make new investments in the display area & HR (not much you can request of dealers if your cars aren't selling). In fact, thanks to Tata's new cars, I'm sure they have started receiving a lot of dealer applications from interested parties.

Good cars need good retail space :thumbs up. Maruti has also been working on improving its showrooms since the last 2 years.

I have noticed that TATA showrooms are most ill-managed. Broken chairs, dirty floor and unprofessional pan/gutkha chewing sales staff. Two days back I visited local TATA showroom with my friend for TATA HEXA. The in-charge SA for HEXA wasn't even clear about variant wise price and discounts. He literally fought with another SA for his misplaced price list in front of us. He didn't even bother to take our contact number as potential HEXA customer.

TATA motors now have amazing products in their arsenal. They need upgraded sales touch-points and highly trained resources to handle and sell these products. All the very best to TATA Motors.

Sure hope they do, for their own sake. Was in the market for a 7 seater this October. I probably could not pay Tata enough for a test ride of the Hexa in Pune. Lackadaisical at best and absolutely couldn't give a damn about getting back. This is after requesting for a test drive twice. Finally received a tentative call back AFTER 3 weeks asking if I was still looking at the Hexa. I could have sworn that the lady on the phone was relieved when I told her that i had already closed on and booked the XUV 500. Hey, anything to get out of doing some work.

Agree on Tata's poorly managed sales network. We have just had the booking details of around 3800 customers being sent out inadvertently to a BHPian who has booked the Harrier.

Tata could and should rebrand its products and showrooms.

Probably a swanky new name for both their cars and showrooms may just be the trick that is needed in the urban markets.

They probably need to reposition a few cars and suvs as premium and probably have an all new nomenclature for the line up.

Probably a Lexus or a Genesis kind of name for their so called premium cars. XYZ by Tata.

Tata showrooms currently have profile mix with both the cab market and the premium customers going to the same showrooms.

Training, training and more training is the name of the game.

Toyota also has the very same problem, but has a cult following,most walk-ins on the Crysta and Fortuner are predicided. I bought an Innova Crysta 2.8 Z for the office without actually seeing the car in person when it was launched.

It's been more than 2 years since this post and I'm sorry to say that the issue with training persists. Had gone to a Tata showroom today and also to Hyundai and Kia showrooms as a friend is currently trying to decide between the Venue, Nexon, Sonet and XUV300 as his next car, and unsurprisingly the worst showroom experience was at the Tata one. It's not that they were rude or uninterested or lackadaisical - it was just that the sales executive did not have basic information at his fingertips, and that too for a tried and tested car like the Nexon. He could not even answer basic questions on the service interval of the petrol and diesel variants and I actually had to ask for an owner's manual to see the manufacturer recommended service interval. He also did not know or would not say whether the petrol engine is a naturally aspirated one or a turbo one. These are all training issues. On the whole the experience did not feel as personal or as welcoming as what we experienced in the Hyundai and Kia showrooms (Hyundai was the best of the lot - even the Kia sales executive was not that knowledgeable in comparison) and the lack of basic knowledge of the sales executive played a huge part in this. It's really unfortunate that even with such competent products Tata has still not been able to sort out the showroom experience.

Does it actually matter to us BHPians if the sales guy's knowledge is questionable? Should we even be asking those guys about the engine make or about the service intervals? We BHPians already know the answers to these questions :). For the rest of the crowd, a quick search on the internet would suffice. When did a car purchase become a job interview? :)On Hyundai, I can tell you Hyundai SAs are no saints. I own a Verna.

I think for the money the sales guys gets paid, this is all we could expect. I think we are just expecting a bit too much for these poorly paid chaps.

P.S:- Not a Tata fanboy. Don't care if they shut shop overnight.

I share your experience but on a lot of other manufacturers too including Hyundai.
I agree that Hyundai's showroom experience has been one of the most consistent and that could be due to a far better sales management and training like you said.

From observation I feel that a lot of it also depends on the dealer as well. e.g. my showroom experience with Maruti was excellent, even better than Hyundai but because that particular dealer is renowned for excellent showroom experience, another dealer of Maruti was the worst.

To me the workshop experience ranks much higher than the showroom. Sales experience will always improve since they want to sell but workshop is where customers are lost.

So I don't worry too much about the knowledge level of the sales reps(better knowledge is always good but most of them lack basics) as long as the behaviour is courteous and they get the job done.

But definitely Tata, of all manufacturers, needs to ramp up its dealerships in quality and quantity. Probably most of its dealerships are the ones carried over from the Sumo and Indica days, they might need a revamp in customer service.

agree: it doesn't and anyway when we enter a showroom most likely we already know the product manuals let alone the brochure.

Agree on the sales reps, we are still far away from a place where everyone knows what they're doing let alone love it :)

Echo sentiments on Tata Sales...I was looking to test drive the Nexon diesel manual. After registering interest and getting an acknowledgment it has been 2 days now. An SA called me and I asked for a test drive. He said car was not available and hung up ��. Mahindra is no better. Wanted to check XUV 300 and the SA said he would call me back to schedule test drive. 2 days gone by and SA has still not called

I hope the A.S.S is also upgraded.

It will be great if the results are visible and felt by prospective customers. This will help Tata garner better market share as they have some competitive products in their portfolio.

As someone who had owned Tata cars I can say that they need to upgrade their network. Not just in sales, but service as well.

Their cars have come so far ahead, and likewise demand better and good service. In the past my only grouse with the brand was their limited service network compared to say Suzuki or Hyundai. I had my car maintained in top shape from a friendly FNG and hence a trouble free ownership experience !

From what I have read online, seems like they are on the verge of bring couple more SUV segment vehicles. The only obstacle for them is the Network. Once they expand that, then its Game on ! :thumbs up

I don't agree with you here. Even BHPians are not expected to have everything on their fingers. Also, there are plenty of people who walk into showrooms who don't understand cars or may not remember all the details of what they researched on the net. The job of a sales guy is to explain the features of a product and service interval and type of engine falls within that. I don't think the questions we asked were unreasonable. We asked the same questions in the Hyundai and Kia showrooms and the respective sales guys answered them without fumbling. There are lots of jobs which are thankless and where people are underpaid. That does not mean that those who are in those jobs will not do it well. They should find another job in that case. Btw I did not say anything about the attitude of the sales guy which is usually the first thing that betrays unhappiness with the work at hand - in this particular case the attitude was fine. I mentioned that the lack of knowledge was more of a training issue and maintain that the fault is with Tata and they should do something about it. I am not blaming the sales guy here.

However, I do accept that this may have been a one-off with this particular showroom like shancz has mentioned with respect to his experience with Maruti, or it could have been an issue with the specific sales guy. Will try out another showroom next time. Still, I would think that providing a consistent sales and service experience would also be in the interest of Tata Motors. Btw, this is a new showroom - it's barely 2-3 years old.