Mahindra Truck and Bus (MTB) is one of the contenders for supremacy in the Indian CV market. The company has a range of trucks and buses that come with the brand promise of Mahindra, delivering quality, reliability, performance, excellent customer care, etc.
Mahindra was one of the firsts to foray into passenger car-like dealerships for CVs, a trend which is becoming a benchmark in the industry today. With a growing dealer network of its own, in addition to the massive reach of its automotive and tractor divisions, MTB is fully equipped to reach customers at any corner of the country.
Mr. Rajat Proothi, Sr. General Manager, Customer Care & Spares Head, MTB, takes us through the company’s aftersales plans and initiatives.
Excerpts:
Benchmarking aftersales support
Mahindra Truck & Bus (MTB) has since its inception focused on providing a delightful service experience to our customers through systems and processes that are aligned with business requirements and globally competitive practices. Highly experienced and capable teams from MTB and our channel partners work in synergy to ensure a prompt and efficient service response for our vehicles plying along the Indian highways and interiors. In addition to the primary network, secondary support systems have also been developed all over to the country. This entire network is backed up by an in-house 24×7 technical call center with facilities for two-way communication and capable of providing technical assistance in over 7 different languages. In addition we have various service schemes and packages including off-product offerings like insurance, extended warranty which set us apart from our competitors. In any competitive benchmarking, our aftersales support will score at the level our customers consider premium.
Support schemes
A very robust and capable service network has been put in place in order to extend breakdown support to our customers. We have an uptime guarantee of 48 hours for HCV on major highways & 24 hours for school buses PAN India. In addition to this, we have created a best-in class onsite service support policy for our customers. This policy includes deputation of technicians at the customer’s site at no extra cost. Currently 37 sites are supported with onsite policy
We have a 5 year or 5, 00,000 km warranty which covers aggregates like engine, driveline etc. We also offer extended warranty packages at very reasonable rates to our customers. For insurance, a tie-up has been made with leading insurance which offers zero depreciation facility to our customers along with various other benefits not provided by anyone else in the market at very reasonable cost.
Systematic Training
MTB has been the pioneer in introducing training to the drivers at the company’s cost. We regularly have driver training programs to impart training to the customer’s drivers regarding proper and safe driving techniques, vehicle features and various options available, to ensure optimum performance. A team of experts has been deployed to impart these driver trainings.
We have a very capable training team which is responsible for carrying out the training programs for our dealer’s technicians and mechanics. An array of training modules right from basic to expert and even a dedicated module for CRDe engines is available. All these modules are updated every quarter to incorporate product up gradations and modifications.
All the technical information is available on a specially designed online portal accessible by all right from channel partners to our workshop mechanics. MTB has two main training centers at Pune & Zaheerabad backed with 4 Regional training centers at Agra, Salem, Nagpur & Kolkata.
Recently, we also introduced a training program specifically designed to educate the fleet managers of our customers to educate them regarding the various dos & don’ts of vehicle maintenance and vehicle service in collaboration with Central Institute of Road Transport, Pune.
The program also contains various modules regarding use of technology to enhance the fleet uptime and also the evolution that the Indian CV industry has gone in the last decade. This program was highly appreciated by all our participating fleet managers.
Raising the bar
We are proud to say that Mahindra Truck & Bus has been the pioneer in this transition and development of a luxury feel in the CV industry, which the competitors have followed. We have set standards for the type of dealer infrastructure, fascia, and customer facilities etc. to ensure a very uniform service experience and brand identity all across the country. This is evident from our 60 exclusive dealers. Service experience and customer connect have been key focus areas for MTB right from the start and we have developed the service processes to parallel the same in passenger vehicle industry.
Extensive pan-India support
We have leveraged on the widespread service network of M&M’s auto & tractor division to ensure prompt service to our customers. We have over 331 authorized service touch points at strategic locations. We have also tied up with over 2200 setups under Roadside assistance program all across the country. 1020 parts retailers have been identified and appointed to ensure easy availability of spare parts for our customers.
We have a very robust system in place to address the vehicle breakdown on the highways which is backed up by a technical call center which works round the clock to ensure customer assistance. The call center is operational 24×7 and works even during festivals and public holidays. The high point is that the call center is multi-lingual and even caters to the four southern languages to ensure effective communication with drivers and owners. We are able to reach 40% of our breakdown vehicles within a span of 4 hours and are continuously working towards strengthening our agility. We have an uptime guarantee which promises for the vehicle to be put on road within 48 hours, failing which we pay the customer Rs. 1000 per day for the number of days his vehicle is off road. Till date we have ensured 100% performance for uptime resulting in no payment of penalty to the customer.
Staying ahead
Aftersales market has been gathering a lot of importance and visibility in the recent years. It has always been an extremely important facet of the business, and will be even more important in the coming years. Indian CV industry is growing through a transition phase and with the increasing competition in the marketplace, aftersales support of a company will be the differentiator among competitors.
We have always focused on aftersales and have put in a long term plan in place. Our key focus areas will be service response, service experience, diagnostic capability and customer connect. Already we have strong systems in place to address these areas and we will keep building up on that. These areas will be our key differentiators and will ensure a premium perception of MTB service amongst our customers.