[libranof1987]

Oh boy, now there's a thread about it. For all the social media star that Zac Hollis has been in India, this is a rare miss. On one hand, there's nothing wrong about what he's said: the content or the tone, but as the head of a company, not something to write on your resume.

Good thing neither he nor VW Group is American; if they were, you'd expect a few lawsuits for a few million dollars and a freebie dished out to existing owners.

I imagine Skoda's PR machinery had a chat with him about this. Social media can be as vicious as much it can be a blessing.

[hserus]

Zac is an Irishman, he should certainly speak English like a native.

This is simply a senior exec reminding a youtuber of his "aukat" for loose comments.

He has been very patient and responsive to tweets, but fair is fair, uninformed criticism is something you don't necessarily have to take when you are a senior exec rather than a customer service person.

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Many times people from non-English speaking countries where English is not the primary language come across as rude while communicating as many times English is the second or third known language and they do not realize so.

I have noticed this many times with my clients (French/German etc) to whom English is the second language known. They sometimes would say things that would otherwise be considered rude.

[Red Liner]

What zac said was absolutely acceptable and correct. What does this idiot youtuber want? A red carpet and a flower garland to pat him on his back for his stupid comment?

I am fed-up with all these so called influencers. I studiously avoid all their content because i find it rubbish.

[GTO]

On the one hand, I am very happy to see a car company boss who says it like it is. I'm quite bored of hearing auto CEOs speak like well-trained, rehearsed parrots by their PR teams. That's the main reason Team-BHP doesn't do any interviews of auto industry honchos. You never get anything useful out of them and they duck all the tough questions.

On the other hand, it is pretty damn arrogant of Zac to make such a statement, and outright stupid to do so on social media. Saying you have "more demand than production capacity" for a car that is one of the poorest selling in the segment means you either don't have a clue of what you're talking about, or your arrogance is blinding you from facts. Zac needs to wake up on a Sunday morning to the fact that his company has a terrible 0.43% market-share after spending 20 years in the country.

Another problem is that when management is so arrogant, it filters down the entire chain, right down to the dealerships & sales personnel. Not good for business.

What Faisal Khan said in his post is 100% factual.

[androdev]

Chassis+drivetrain of Polo/Rapid is equal or superior to their modern peers. So the issue of it being a ten old year platform has no objective merit in our market and their buyers are aware of this. Modern can also mean cheaper build with more gadgetry and less fun to drive. Just because something is latest doesn't automatically mean it's better.

And I like CEOs who don't speak like PR bots. Better to err on the side of showing some swag.

And that guy's car reviews are strictly for illiterates, which we have in plenty. Bangalore auto guys drive with more class.

[Godzilla]

Fully agree that new platform does not necessarily mean better. I am driving a Nissan Kicks because I was smitten by an old duster platform and nothing in the market now offers this level of ride comfort in its segment. However, Faisal commented on keyless entry and other features that could have easily been added by VW.

I watch Faisal Khan reviews and I like them and he is one of my favourite YouTube car reviewer. In fact I feel he is one of the trustable, no non-sense, straight forward YouTube reviewers instead of sweet coating things. Also he covers the dynamics of car really well instead of only talking about specs (which we usually know) currently watching his BMW M5 review which is 46 min long. The amount of details he shows without boring, is just amazing.

He was one of the few who did not review the Seltos for a long time due to the unfair media practices by Kia. I respect him for questioning manufacturers in this age of putting reviews for biscuits.

I feel, Zac definitely sounded arrogant, and fully agree with GTO’s comments this just is wrong way to talk to media or a customer. ‘Go buy somewhere/something else’ is one of the most obnoxious thing that can be said by a business to potential customers.

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by GTO

What Faisal Khan said in his post is 100% factual.

This is the essence. I would like to add another fact

Fact 1 : Faizal was 100% correct

Fact 2 : Rapid does not have such a demand like Zac claims. I enquired about one and I have had half a dozen calls for 4 days straight from the minute I expressed interest on their site.

If Hyundai's head did this, suppose after Faisal criticized Creta, it would hold true. Not for Skoda, definitely not for Rapid.

There was no need for Zac to have even responded to Faisal Khan. If Zac followed Faisal, he would actually thank him for keeping their dated products relevant with frequent videos of the rapid, and praising the car's well deserved positives like the build, material quality, interior quality, engines, driving dynamics, even small stuff like all 4 windows one touch down, heck, even the ability to roll down windows through the key fob. He has also pointed out that their designs are old (but timeless) and that they don't offer that incremental value on the Style/Montecarlo variants when compared to the rider/rider+ or even the ambition variants, which is absolutely true.

Zac eventually apologized for the comment, but unfortunately the social media never remembers the apology as much as it remembers the offense.

[Cessna182]

Honestly I don't get why people have this crazy obsession about models being old. Innova is over 2 decades old and Toyota didn't do much with its underpinnings in that period. Fortuner is over 3 decades old. Toyota won't and shouldn't do much about it because the platform is tested.
Fun fact- the planes you fly in are decades old as well.
Companies add features, change suspension components, add or delete structural features to improve compliance to safety norms etc. Very few companies will change the underlying architecture. And that's fine, as long as the product is safe.
Funny to see Maruti and Hyundai drivers complaining about Skoda quality and age. A touchscreen or interior dye change is not a new gen. It is the same gen with vendors changing dies.
Faisal Khan is a guy who thinks revving a car is the best way to test its performance and usage.
Not 1 word about maintenance, parts, fuel economy etc. Won't say much about the subscribers. The reply is apt and hope the actual buyers of a skoda car are not his fans.

[Nithesh_M]

The only thing this incident highlighted is that even the Jolly GO man Zac has been frustrated by the lack of sales Skoda is doing even after a low entry price for the Rapid. That and the alleged unsold inventory of some of those CBU VRS and Karoq must have really dented the brand's confidence in the man. I say this because he followed up this outburst with saying the factory capacity is full for Rapid which would have meant a Creta like wait period of months yet dealers have variants ready with discounts. All not well in the Czech world?

[McLaren Rulez]

I think that was a bad move from Hollis from a PR standpoint. It's not worth getting into a fight with a two-bit YouTuber but he got provoked into one. Faisal Khan is the zero substance clickbait type so will be relishing this.

[R_Gowardhan]

Ok. Now I get a what's app forward link for an article published on Rush lane with a misleading headline :"Rapid is Old & Expensive - Skoda head says buy something else". The content of the rest of the article is quiet different though.

[ishlinea7260]

Here’s an instance when Zac acknowledges that VAG cars have poor long term reliability.
“After 9 years things start to go wrong”. His daughter’s polo was not even worth repairing, guess she should have purchased a Toyota.

[Cessna182]

Originally Posted by ishlinea7260

Here’s an instance when Zac acknowledges that VAG cars have poor long term reliability.
“After 9 years things start to go wrong” .His daughter’s polo was even not worth repairing, guess she should have purchased a Toyota.

This is nice. He acknowledges that VAG cars won't even last 15 years. Hope owners and new buyers keep that in mind.
This is why Skoda never does well in India. There's this fake elitism in their attitude to everything. A customer complains about high ownership costs and this guy talks about how his vintage car is expensive too.

[Gurgaon_lyon]

Originally Posted by hserus

Zac is an Irishman, he should certainly speak English like a native.

That explains it all, an Irishman trying to proverbial to be non English

Originally Posted by GTO

On the other hand, it is pretty damn arrogant of Zac to make such a statement, and outright stupid to do so on social media. Saying you have "more demand than production capacity" for a car that is one of the poorest selling in the segment means you either don't have a clue of what you're talking about, or your arrogance is blinding you from facts. Zac needs to wake up on a Sunday morning to the fact that his company has a terrible 0.43% market-share after spending 20 years in the country.

Another problem is that when management is so arrogant, it filters down the entire chain, right down to the dealerships & sales personnel. Not good for business.

What Faisal Khan said in his post is 100% factual.

I guess next it would be turn of FCA claim demand overstripping the capacity, in a million plus market they are hardly selling few thousand cars. And as you noted it is trickling down to dealerships and that's where real problem is.

Originally Posted by ishlinea7260

Here’s an instance when Zac acknowledges that VAG cars have poor long term reliability.
“After 9 years things start to go wrong” .His daughter’s polo was even not worth repairing, guess she should have purchased a Toyota.

Ha ha ha. That explains it all. It can make good advertisment for Toyota just last week we saw a story of million in Innova.

[JishD]

Zac spoke from his heart - but the reality is, at his level, corporate speak is a better alternative to candidness. Executives in all top companies are media trained, and to a lesser extent social media trained - evidently with the exception of Skoda India. VAG global will be watching every move of Zac now - if India 2.0 screws up even a bit, heads will roll.

In an era where industries are devoting significant monies to improve customer experiences in pre and post sales, this arrogance from a top exec is unwarranted and totally counter productive