Tata Motors logos are pictured outside their flagship showroom in Mumbai. Photo: ReutersTata Motors has chalked out plans to strengthen their customer relations and services in Kerala, after securing top spot in the India Customer Service Index (CSI) survey conducted by JD Power India in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Thrissur.
Tata Motors secured over 900 points in the three districts - Thiruvananthapuram (988), Kozhikode (951) and Thrissur (914) - it ranked No.1 and finished third in Kochi, with 873 points.
Dinesh Bhasin, head of customer care in Tata Motors Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, credited an aggressive, evolving, and localized customer service strategy for the good show in JD Power survey.
Excerpts from the interview:
Top rank in CSI rank
Tata Motors had rolled out the Navaratna strategy across all workshops to improve factors like service quality, service initiation, service advisor, service facility, and vehicle pick-up in the city, which are key in JD Power survey.
The Navaratna strategy also focuses on factors like service advisor, motivation & engagement of service advisors, relationship manager concept, customer relationship building activities, special focus on Tiago, Zest, Nano, Bolt, vehicle pick-up process, ceremonious delivery after body repairs, compulsory foam wash at workshop and also during home visits for attending washing related complaints, journey from customer delight to customer devotion, taking service to the next level.
JD Power survey
On a national scale, Tata Motors bagged the 2nd position and received the second highest score in JD Power 2017 India Customer Service Index (Mass Market) scoring 893 points. Tata Motors was ranked 1 in the South Zone for the second consecutive year. While industry de-grew by 3 points, Tata Motors grew by 5 points, increasing its lead with the industry average by 16 points. Tata Motors is among the most improved brands in this study and has been consistently growing since last six years. Customers have recognized these efforts and are witnessing the change at touch points in the way we engage with them, service experience, and our quick turn-around time
Effort on further improving product reliability
We are constantly learning from new trends and evolving our customer service program. Service is one of the key factors in the car buying decision and thereby plays a critical role in creating new benchmarks and bringing the brand closer to its customers.
On the regional front, our team regularly visits workshops for audits, providing on the job training to dealer manpower and consulting dealerships for improvement on processes, technical knowledge and diagnosis, and quality of service to customers.
Service and sales outlets in Kerala sector
We are in the process of identifying locations to expand our service network. This is based on our business requirements and to further improve our customer reach and make service accessible to wide geographies.
Customer service, the status and future plans
There have been conscious efforts to ensure quick turnaround on our service complaints. In our new policy, all customer related concerns have to be resolved within 24 hours of the complaint being filed. We have reduced our customer complaints by 20 per cent in FY ‘17 as compared to FY ’16 along with 90 per cent reduction in complaints on turnaround time adherence. These are resultants of new service programs like ‘Speed-O-Service’, pick up and drop service and increased usage of technology like Service App, V-Tabs and body-repair estimation tool- Audatex. The customer complaint closure cycle has been reduced from 72 to 48 hours. In the year 2016, over 85 per cent complaints were resolved in less than 48 hours.
Going forward we plan to add 200 more touch points by end of FY 2020, with an aim to triple the number to 1,500 dealerships in the next five years across the country.
