[JithinR]

We Indians in general are quite smart. Not necessarily for technical knowledge but rather for jugaad solutions (sorry for being generic here but can't shake the feeling).

Any system that is designed to improve a process, we will find ways around it. Online feedback mechanisms seem to be especially prone to being subverted in our hands.

One such process that I never believed in, is the feedback mechanism for sales and services of Indian car/bike manufacturers.

For example, if I take my Honda City for service, the SA will provide a feedback form before releasing the car. I am sure that if I argue that I want to provide feedback directly to Honda and don't care to fill the form, the car will be held hostage. Raise my voice and create a scene and ultimately they would get rid of me and fill the form themselves.

Why can't Honda (and others) have us fill the form at home to ensure that it's done without any sort of pressure and keep it anonymous? I don't know the answer. Maybe they will argue it's so that all customer issues are resolved before they leave the dealership.

Just like that we have feedback mechanisms in place from car manufacturers that look to gain insight into the purchase experience. I have always believed that many Sales advisors simply input their own mobile number/email and give themselves glowing reviews. I believe this happened when I purchased my TVS bike in a major city like Bengaluru.

Here is one shocking indictment about this scam being run at a sales/service center of none other than our forums troubled relative TATA motors. I don't want to explain the whole thing since the owner does a concise job of it himself.

Tata Sales Feedback Scam?

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NOTE: Sorry the video is in Hindi.

I believe other members are aware of this scam too. But my question though is why companies like TATA don't seem to care about this leak in their feedback mechanism. Since the owner (and others who have noticed this) would have bought this to the attention of TATA motors, I can't understand how a dealership can continue engaging in this practice.

Besides, what are Area Managers of TATA doing to keep their dealerships in line. Is this a scenarios similar to the UPSC scam where a cabal of people have conspired together to game the system. Do Area Managers of TATA get promoted on how few complaints are registered against dealers in their circle?

Finally, any recommendations to improve the security of this system?

I mean TATA could easily figure out which numbers keep popping up in their DataBase as a potential customer with bookings. If a sales advisor masquerades as a customer 100's of times in a year, it won't take a genius to figure it out but somehow our manufacturers seem to struggle with it.

Can members share their experience with welcome/feedback calls for recent purchases? I am curious to know who has the most well thought out process protected from scams like these.

[LMOO2]

Originally Posted by JithinR

Can members share their experience with welcome/feedback calls for recent purchases? I am curious to know who has the most well thought out process protected from scams like these.

I have owned VW, Tata, maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Honda as well as Fiat. I would say that only Maruti Suzuki has the best feedback system. Starting from sales to service almost everyone is in loop and they share the escalation matix at every step. The sales executive as well as service advisors are always well mannered and have a fear for their feedback system. I was once told that there is an incentive based on their customers feedback score. After every service the service advisor used to take the feedback personally and used to ask if we have any problem related to service or the car and would ask me to rate them 10/10 if I got a call from their HO. I had never faced any issue with their sales or service whereas with Tata Motors its exactly opposite.

[greenhorn]

My experience - based on this funda I learnt at B School
https://rockcontent.com/blog/marketing-concept/

We have been spoilt by Companies who are at the most mature stage of this journey. They understand the big picture and are willing to take steps to achieve.

The sad reality is that not a lot of companies have evolved to that stage. Heck, some may not even care. Your post make an assumption that car companies care for end consumers. The truth is that the real customers of car companies are the dealers. Consumers are just an intermediary in the process that their marketing departments have to convince to go to their dealers and spend their money on inventory so that the dealers are happy and the factories can continue to churn out more cars.

There are quite a auto companies that believe that their core business is manufacturing . If you remember when Nissan came to India, they outsourced their entire distribution and sales to a third party.

When companies implement satisfaction surveys, Except maybe for maruti (yes, maruti really does seem to care - not sure how that happened ) The purpose of the surveys is to create another KPI to use as a rationale for denying dealerships their incentives. For most manufacturers, If customers are all happy, then they actually have to pay higher incentives to their distributors, and that's expensive. This creates a perverse system where its in the best interest of the manufacturer for consumers such as us to get crap service. We are just collateral in the game between manufacturers and dealers. Everyone pretends its for customer satisfaction, but It's like a government which says weeding out corruption is its number one priority. It's just a game, We all pretend to play along.

[dgindia]

Generally car dealers are known to be smart enough to take advantage of naiveness of customers. Most dealers across all auto manufacturers resort to some tricks at some point of entire sales cycle - from introductory discussion to delivery of car; and later during maintenance visits.

I also had my share of challenges, but thanks to Team BHP forum, I was educated. Even though I was not a member, I had read many posts on similar topics.

Always try to get everything promised to you documented on e-mail. Even if they get the feedback form filled earlier, we can send email communication to auto-manufacturer directly. Most of the times it is acknowledged and dealer has to rectify any wrong-doing.

Every auto manufacturing company knows that "car" is the second most expensive purchase done by a person, first being "home". Hence they value the positive image of their product and service in the eyes of customer. Widespread negative feedback has adverse effect on their revenue and they want to avoid it.

[BullettuPaandi]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

maruti really does seem to care - not sure how that happened

My guess: Maruti/Suzuki's reputation. I'm not talking about unsafe cars; I'm talking about their sales figures, spares & service availability, etc. What this means is that for someone looking to start a dealership business, opening a Maruti Showroom is probably the safest bet. In this line of business, it's now akin to the yesteryear's 'opening a supermarket'. So, essentially Maruti has this leverage: if a dealer doesn't budge, nothing, Maruti could just easily find a different franchise.

Also, adding to your post: Dealers are manufacturers customers in a yet another way. Manufacturers also finance dealers to maintain inventory. So, dealers basically move their product, manage service influx & pay the manufacturer back with interest.

This type of business model (largely under 'Vertical Disintegration') is all too common in other businesses as well. Manufacturers are just like cartel kingpins in this regard- we basically never meet or contact the actual manufacturers. I recently tried to contact Hero via an e-Mail they provide in their website, and it only went to some outsourced 'Business Solutions' company, who responded 'Contact the concerned Service Centre' to my (paraphrased) 'Your verification via SMS provision for genuine parts is confusing'. Note that this is only regarding Hero and their provision; not about their dealers or service centres.

At this point, I don't really wish for this to get better; only for manufacturers to stop spending on such useless outsourcings, and at least save us some money on the ex-showroom price.

[It's Magic]

In my opinion, most manufacturers have implemented good feedback systems, but I have my doubts about how consistently they are followed.

The best example would be service feedback. In most cases, you first have to share your feedback with the service center, along with your satisfaction rating. Later, you will receive a call from the manufacturer to confirm your provided feedback/ rating. However, I doubt wheather this works in an ideal situation.

Almost every service center pursues consumers to give a 10/10 rating. All service advisors or tele callers suggest that 9 means okay and 10 means good according to their rating system. Hence, they persuade you to give a 10/10 rating.

I had multiple discussions initially about this peculiar rating system, but now, I have kind of gotten used to it. They also request you to rate 10/10 again when we receive a call from the manufacturer. I think the initial rating is for internal purposes, while the rating you give to the manufacturer holds more value.

[lazyjay90767]

It's a very good point you have raised. Even for me, after I purchased my first four wheeler, twice - post purchase and post first servicing, the CRM requested for the OTP for filling in the feedback. When I asked what's the point of filling your feedback yourself, they mentioned that many times customers won't have time to fill these things hence we help them out. I replied that I was not one of those and I'd do it myself. I typed elaborate responses for about half an hour on notepad++ and submitted it.