Tata Motors has really come a long way from the Tata Indica times, the New Forever Range of products from the carmaker are some of the best-looking vehicles in their segment, along with scoring high on safety ratings the vehicles also come with the latest mechanicals and connected technology.

A customer might visit a showroom 3-4 times to finalise the purchase of the car, the same customer will be visiting the service station many times over the lifecycle of the vehicle and hence We spoke with Dimple Mehta – Head Customer Care – Domestic & IB, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors, to know more about what Tata Motors is doing to on the Service front to go in tandem with its New Forever range of products which are setting the sales charts on fire.

Excerpts

How has Tata Motors handled the vehicle service during the pandemic?

Amidst the pandemic, we at Tata Motors took decisions which ensured that we follow complete safety protocols while maintaining minimum contact when customers got their vehicles serviced. At Tata Motors, safety is the top priority for us, our customers as well as our dealers at all times. Accordingly, utmost care was taken at all dealerships and service centres to maintain requisite social distancing, minimise physical contact with the vehicles and enhance the levels of sanitisation and hygiene.

With the announcement of lockdowns (both in 2020 and 2021), Tata Motors extended the warranty and scheduled service periods for vehicles whose warranty last date & service due was falling in the months of the lockdown. At the very beginning of the pandemic, the plan of action and decisions were being taken to ensure a safe and seamless experience to our customers while following all Covid-19 guidelines and protocols. We leveraged the best use of digital and stayed connected with our customers so that communication gaps were plugged. We made use of WhatsApp and social media and shared car care tips, which would help our customers maintain their vehicle healthy during the lockdown. As the lockdown did not allow many businesses to function, we ensured to have 24X7 breakdown assistance through special permissions of the local authorities. All the customers whose vehicles were lying in the workshop for repairs were informed about safety of their vehicle during this period. Workshop restart plan was made by the company to ensure sanitization and social distancing at workshops to have a safe environment to visit for customers. Detailed restart guidelines were shared with the dealers. We also ensured that a high level of safety in terms of hygiene and sanitization was followed at all our workshops along with an excellent quality of service. We also increased our focus on contactless service wherever possible with digital interventions.

Tata Motors also announced the launch of its new initiative – ‘Sanitised by Tata Motors’ to assure customers about the highest standards of safety being followed in their car dealerships, nationwide. With this novel initiative, customers were delivered a fully sanitised new vehicle from the Tata Motors dealerships. Specially designed labels confirming ‘Sanitised by Tata Motors’ were pasted on the vehicle post sanitisation where the vehicle remained untouched by the dealership teams till it was delivered to the customer. Taking precautionary measure a notch higher, the vehicle key too was handed over to the customer in a sanitised box, especially designed to avoid any direct contact of the dealer staff.

All these measures helped our customers to conveniently service their Tata Motors cars and SUVs in the middle of the pandemic last year.

With the New Forever range of cars, Tata Motors has taken a huge jump in terms of quality, technology, and complexity of the vehicles… while this has been well accepted by the buyers, what changes have been done on the service front?

In the last 18-24 months, Tata Motors has constantly refreshed its product portfolio as part of its New Forever strategy. The entire range of cars and SUVs has been very well appreciated by customers for its design, performance, and safety. To ensure that, our customers get the best of the service experience, we have also taken the necessary steps to progress the after-sales experience. Our dealer networks go through various training workshops as well as online training courses which have been conducted to bring more awareness and understanding of crucial technology updates. Adapting to new technology was a crucial and most important part of this process and we urged our dealers to focus on skill sets of the technicians and to understand and embrace new technologies. Keeping customers as the focus we re-imagined our service processes as part of our front-end infrastructure and leveraged the use of digital. To bring an enhanced experience, we have refreshed and launched our customer service app – Tata Motors Service Connect (TMSC) in 2020 with a new user interface for a better overall customer experience.

With Harrier and Safari models crossing the 20L barrier, are there any plans to offer premium service centre/departments for these customers?

All our workshops are highly equipped with modern-day technology and the latest equipment. For our premium range of products like our flagship SUV Safari and the Harrier, we have introduced a new service product i.e., a ceramic coating that enhances the exterior looks of these premium vehicles. To our esteemed customers, we also make sure that dealerships offer to pick and drop facility which saves on their time.

Keeping Customer As The Focus We Re-Imagined Our Service Processes – Dimple Mehta, Tata Motors