Customer friendly

I was invited to the launch event of the Honda Jazz at a dealership in Pune yesterday. The event was supposed to commence at 6:30 pm and it commenced at 6 pm. There were no VIP guests and no fashion shows. There was one short speech and they unveiled the car at about 6:45. The CEO of the dealership then announced that they had a few vehicles ready for test drives so as to encourage us to write out a cheque.

A number of us signed up for the test drive and as a result, also signed the cheque.

Contrast this will the launch event of the Audi A3 that I attended in Pune in August last year. The event was scheduled to start at 7pm, but having had prior experience with this dealership, I said I would be there at about 8. The CRM executive from the dealership called me at least twice to insist that I should be there at 7pm. I grumbled about the last couple of times when the event started at least an hour late. She assured me that this would not be the case. Ergo, I showed up at 7.

At about 7:45, they announced that the celebrity guests, Kabir Bedi and Pooja Chopra were held up at a prior event and would be arriving shortly. I walked up to the executive to tell her I was disappointed. To keep guests occupied, a stand-up comedian hired for the event made jokes in poor taste about examples of the Tata Nano catching fire and about how MBAs were  not getting jobs these days. At this point I sought out the manager of the dealership and told him exactly what I thought of the program thus far. The celebrities eventually arrived at about 8:25 and made more jokes about the state of Pune's traffic. The car was unveiled at about 8:45. I asked if I could come in for a test drive the next day. They told me that they needed to register a car before they could offer test drives and it would be a few days. "Early next week then?" "Can't say for sure. We will get back to you." Almost a year out, I am still waiting for a test drive. They are yet to register a petrol-engined car for test driver.

This situation was repeated somewhat at the Pune launch of another luxury SUV. Event started late. There was a fashion show. Car was unveiled. No test drives. Availability timelines uncertain.

I was tempted to close this piece by suggesting that the luxury automobile manufacturers might want to learn a thing or two from the Japanese. But I realize that they are being equally customer friendly. It is just that I am not representative of their customer base. I imagine their customer base is comprised of small time politicians and people who have struck gold by virtue of having owned land near the outskirts of the city. Perhaps, for this bunch, punctuality is not as important as getting an opportunity to ogle at a beauty queen.