[Dippy]

Just back after attending a press conference held by Tata Motors this afternoon in Mumbai. Tata Motors has launched a new service program for its passenger car segment today which goes by the name "Service Edge". This service program will be available at its 800 service centres across 500 cities in India. Tata has emphasized on three attributes to describe this service program : Response, Reliability & Value. So what is Service Edge all about? Here are the important features and highlights of this program

Response:

• 24x7 On road assistance: A 24x7 breakdown and towing assistance service which you can access through a toll free helpline. Under this service, Tata ensures a response turn around of 60 minutes in city limits, 90 minutes on state and national highways and within 120 minutes in hilly areas and other places.
• Rapid repair: An initiative from Tata Motors to offer a quick, specialized body service at their service centres. Under this service, small dents, scratches and other minor body work will be taken care of and the car will be delivered on the same day itself.
• e-Service Appointments: A facility to book a service appointment including date and time slot at a dealer of your choice. You can also create an online job card based on your requirements. That way the job card will be ready by the time you drop in your car for service. Your service booking will be confirmed by an SMS to your cell phone.
• Speed-O-Service: A quick service facility under which you get your car serviced within a time frame of 60 minutes to a maximum of 120 minutes at any Tata service station.

Reliability:

• Symptom based diagnostics: A new state of the art diagnostic system to do a complete check you car. This will help zero in on specific problems faced by a customer. A dedicated technician trained by Tata Motors known as the Diagnostic Expert Technician (DET) will be present at every dealership to use the diagnostic tool.
• Flying Doctors: A team of 10 on call technical experts to help out with higher level diagnostic problems to lend support to the DETs.
• Quality repairs: A high quality check on every vehicle to identify repair requirements which might not have been noticed or brought up by the customer.

Value:

• Value care: Totally customized maintenance plans for service and repairs with flexible payment options. The Value Care plans cover everything from labour and parts to consumables.
• Tata Motors Original Parts: Tata Motors is giving a one year warranty on all spare parts. All these parts will be trademarked as TOP or Tata Motors Original Parts. However, the warranty will only be valid if the parts are fixed at an authorized Tata workshop. Cost effective repair kits will also be available to the customers.
• Tata Motors Insurance: Features online policy issuance and near cashless repair facilities across the Tata Motors dealership network. Tata aims to offer industry best depreciations on composite parts under its insurance. A zero depreciation cover policy is also on the cards.
• Extended Warranty: Tata is offering an extended warranty upto 4 years or 1,50,000 kms on all its passenger vehicles. The little Nano comes with the option of "Nano Secure Extended Warranty" where Nano owners can choose from an extended warranty of 12months/40,000 kms or 24 months/60,000 kms.
• Gold Club: A two year membership gives you special privileges like priority services and discounts. Fees for becoming a member are Rs.499/-.

Some other points:

• Service Edge will not be applicable to Tata commercial vehicles.
• As of now, this service is only for Tata cars. Extending the service to Fiat cars is a possibility.
• Tata Aria to hit the roads mid 2010.
• 25,000 Nanos already on the road. That number will rise substantially once the Gujarat plant is fully operational.
• Tata car prices to go up once Euro IV Norms come into place this April.

[safari_lover]

This is an nice initiative from Tata Motors, shows they are serious about improving the most criticized aspect of their product offerings - After Sale Service!

@Dippy, any news on the Sanand plant? When is it expected to start commercial production?

[greenhorn]

as long as its being done by the same old TASC's , I'll give it a pass. Their competence leaves a lot to be desired :|

[recshenoy]

nice initiative by TATA.
is it only for new customers or existing customers as well?

[GTO]

This is just Tata's way of reaching out to Individual car owners. Notice how the plan is NOT applicable to commercial (taxi) owners.

@ Dippy : Can I avail of these services for my '07 Indigo?

Originally Posted by Dippy

Under this service, Tata ensures a response turn around of 60 minutes in city limits, 90 minutes on state and national highways and within 120 minutes in hilly areas and other places.

A tall claim. If they manage to send assistance to a stranded car within 60 minutes anywhere in the city, that's commendable.

A facility to book a service appointment including date and time slot at a dealer of your choice. You can also create an online job card based on your requirements. That way the job card will be ready by the time you drop in your car for service. Your service booking will be confirmed by an SMS to your cell phone.

Excellent! Car dealers & service stations are lagging atleast 10 years behind in IT. I'm happy to see an emerging trend where we can book appointments & specify job work online itself.

If only service advisors can be reached via email (which they actually check & reply to). Would make things so much simpler for both parties (car owner + dealership).

A quick service facility under which you get your car serviced within a time frame of 60 minutes to a maximum of 120 minutes at any Tata service station.

Only logical as minor services require little other than lube + filter changes, washing etc.

Reliability:

• Symptom based diagnostics: A new state of the art diagnostic system to do a complete check you car. This will help zero in on specific problems faced by a customer. A dedicated technician trained by Tata Motors known as the Diagnostic Expert Technician (DET) will be present at every dealership to use the diagnostic tool.
• Flying Doctors: A team of 10 on call technical experts to help out with higher lever diagnostic problems to lend support to the DETs.
• Quality repairs: A high quality check on every vehicle to identify repair requirements which might not have been noticed or brought up by the customer.

I'll take these with a pinch of salt. Will believe when I actually see BHPians / car owners reporting on the same.

Either ways, nice to see that Tata is on top of its weakest link in the ownership experience i.e. Service quality. Now, how about solving those early product niggles?

[finneyp]

Sounds very good!

Only if they extended this program to Fiat cars as well...

[condor]

GTO : @ Dippy : Can I avail of these services for my '07 Indigo?

@GTO, I dont know about the rest of the features, but the Gold Club should definitely be available for your Indigo. I must have been one of the earliest customers of the Gold Club package for my '05 Sumo. Got this about 5-6 months back, and it more than pays for itself through the discounts.

[harry10]

@Dippy-
1. Is this Tata insurance available for purchase of new vehicles cos as of now i guess its ICICI who are doing it primarily.
2. Can you elaborate more about this gold club. Sounds interesting and might be useful.

Good initiative and specially that online system(if it works) will be highly useful.

[jkdas]

I got a snail mail from Tata last week stating that they will give me the Gold Club membership for free if I take the Tata AIG insurance for my Safari ( I intent to do so this week).

Guess what I posted in some threads here was about Value Care. Its only available for 'cars' This means Safari/Grande doesn't get it once it has run 40k or has completer 421 days or so, ( can someone confirm this). The top pack gives you warranty/replacement even for battery. The package should come at a nice price ( read high).

My friend and TBHPian got a package wherein he doesnt haev to pay for some stuff for 1lac kilometers/ 5years. Hope he can pitch in regarding this.

[tsk1979]

Value care is like and AMC, and the customer care guy told me its applicable to cars done just 10K kms
As for service edge, the anywhere in assistance service is free for first year.
As for DETs, I know for sure that couple of senior mechanics went for DET training from the workshop I go to.
Tata service and customer care has sure improved, and infact is better than others. However the problem with tata now is poor QC at their plant, rather than the service.

[greenhorn]

tsk, maybe the tasc's in your area have, but its pretty much the same here as when I bought my car.

[Dippy]

Originally Posted by safari_lover

This is an nice initiative from Tata Motors, shows they are serious about improving the most criticized aspect of their product offerings - After Sale Service!

@Dippy, any news on the Sanand plant? When is it expected to start commercial production?

They didnt give me definite date but they said it would be operational very soon

Originally Posted by GTO

This is just Tata's way of reaching out to Individual car owners. Notice how the plan is NOT applicable to commercial (taxi) owners.

@ Dippy : Can I avail of these services for my '07 Indigo?

Yes they have plans for existing owners as well whose cars are out of warranty

Originally Posted by harry10

@Dippy-
1. Is this Tata insurance available for purchase of new vehicles cos as of now i guess its ICICI who are doing it primarily.
2. Can you elaborate more about this gold club. Sounds interesting and might be useful.

Good initiative and specially that online system(if it works) will be highly useful.

Tata will be offering their insurance for new vehicles. As far as the Gold Club is concerned, they didnt not give exact details on the privileges being offered but I'm sure more info should be out soon.

[gomzi]

This is a good initiative. A service advisor had told me a few weeks ago to wait until this plan comes out. Since he knows my Indigo CS is out of warranty, i guess it'll cover my car too. Will check with the tata guys and post on it.

[jalsa777]

Originally Posted by finneyp

Sounds very good!

Only if they extended this program to Fiat cars as well...

dont worry mate. Such a service is already there for fiat.

read: fiat first

(cant post link because i am posting from mobile. But, its there on fiat website)

[vasanthn21]

Looks like TATAs are learning from the market.

They incorporated most of the feedback from market into their new gen cars.

They might be a bit slow in incorporating the suggestions but slowly they ARE doing this.

The Service Edge looks really good on paper. It will all come down to how well they can implement this. Going by their history, they will come good on at least 80% of the claims. (More reasons to buy the Vistas and the Manzas )