It is not enough to be technically good. How many car manufacturers ensure that customers have a totally satisfying experience with the brand?

When I was a young boy I heard a story that, though apocryphal, nevertheless makes a point. An English couple was travelling through Egypt in their Rolls Royce. Somewhere along the way they broke an axle. The travellers called Rolls Royce (RR) in England and told them about the problem. According to the story, RR immediately flew out an engineer armed with all the spares, the car was repaired, and the travellers were soon on their way. On getting back to England, the owner of the car called RR to ask about the bill for the repairs. Legend has it that RR told them that they had no record of anybody going out to Egypt and, what’s more, they said, that it was unlikely that such a thing could ever happen to a Rolls Royce!

This “story” took place long before marketing was taught in business schools. But the lesson is obvious. Consumers do not buy good or services. They buy offerings, which render services, which create value. The offering and value consist of many components, some of which are activities (services) and some are things (goods). It is not enough to make a car or an appliance that is technically good. Even a manufactured product needs to have services bundled with it to ensure that a customer has a totally satisfying experience with the brand. Brands are “experienced”. This is the age of experiential marketing. Listen to the crescendo of auto advertising. It is either bhp, or the number of valves, or the 16-bit computer or the torque that they are touting. To the vast majority of customers this is gobbledy-gook. The truth also is that if 90 per cent of one’s driving is done in the city, 90 per cent of the so-called differences are meaningless.

As a marketing practitioner, I find it hard to believe that any marketing professional will air an ad for his brand that shows the car racing with horses or camels in the desert. Or that any right-thinking marketing person will accept an ad that features their motorcycle, ridden by some toothy film star, being chased by a fighter jet. Of course, I could be wrong. May be this is what sells cars and motorcycles nowadays! And if you believe that, then please read no further and waste your time.

Every service has some tangible components, and every product has some intangible elements. And it is in this latter area that most auto companies need to bone up on. I believe that it is in the service component (pun intended) that competition will hot up. Edward de Bono, the “inventor” of lateral thinking, once suggested to the British marketing department of Ford that they should try to buy up NCP, the company that owns most of the car parks in Britain. Then they should allow only Ford cars can be parked there. Ford would thus have a sustainable competitive advantage. The competition would shift from “My lump of engineering is better than yours” to “I can park my car while you run around in circles!” Needless to say that Ford did not buy the idea. After all, most engineers think in a linear fashion. But the reality, as de Bono points out, is that a car is no longer a lump of engineering.

Like most products it needs to have services integrated into the offering, and that includes servicing, insurance and re-sale. Without going into marketing jargon and without management barf, here is what I would like to see my vehicle manufacturer doing for me:
For starters, is it possible for me to get my vehicle repaired and or serviced without sending it to some godforsaken part of the city? Why is it impossible for most auto companies to provide service facilities within easy reach of their customers? There are hundreds of garages that can be fitted with the right tools, jigs and fixtures for most normal service requirements. This is where Maruti wins hands down. Maruti’s TV ad campaign highlighting the spread of their service facilities makes a lot of sense. In the remote recesses of the Himalayas there are mechanics that fix Marutis. And they do have the largest market share. And, remember, this used to be a great USP for the Ambassador, before that hunk disintegrated into a non-car!

But if you have a Honda or a Ford, or a Scorpio, God help you. For the smallest problem you will have to spend at least half a day in just driving to and from the dealer’s garage. The large, expensive, luxury cars are usually driven by chauffeurs. True or false? I had this very interesting experience.

In a Sonata lent to me by a well-heeled friend, the driver was trying to adjust the air conditioning, in vain. Not being familiar with the car I asked him why he did not check up how it works in the owner’s manual. Sheepishly he admitted that he could not read English. Have you ever seen a car owner’s manual written in Hindi or any other vernacular language? If you have, please send me a copy.

It’s almost as if there is a conspiracy amongst the car manufacturers to ensure that the majority of the drivers must be kept ignorant. Like our politicians who want the electorate to be ignorant otherwise they may be lynched! In the US, when Toyota launched the Lexus, they set up a brand new distribution channel. They were clear that for a product as up-market and as prestigious as the Lexus nothing less would do. If you need to give your Lexus in for servicing, they will give you a “loaner” for your use. I fantasise about the day that our Indian car manufacturers will do the same, especially when high-priced cars have to go in for not infrequent repairs. If not that, the least they might do is to send a driver to pick up the car, have it repaired and sent back (preferably overnight, so that you have the use of the car during the day) without it being seen as a special favour done for special clients. Have you ever tried asking technical kind of questions to the sales staff in the showrooms? Look at the paradox.

The advertising is all technical facts and statistics but the sales staff are, well, at best ignorant. It is almost like asking financial advisors about financial advice. Don’t do it. Most of them do not know what the hell they are talking about. Smart young ladies, speaking undecipherable Hinglish, do nothing to push sales graphs upwards. Well-informed persons (male or female) with product knowledge would help. Car dealers seem to have discovered the term after-sales service. Perhaps their principals told them about it.

So on a lazy Saturday afternoon, while you are having your siesta, you can expect a call from a lady from the dealership asking you if your car is working fine. If you say yes, then that’s that! Now you can stay awake. If you say no, she will suggest you send it to the garage. That’s after-sales service for you!

Every time I send my car for repairs, I wonder if they have actually done all the things they say they have. Gone are the days when I had the satisfaction of standing by the car, chatting with the mechanic, who became almost a friend, and having the satisfaction of getting everything done right in front of my eyes. Being an Indian, I am always suspicious of mechanics, electricians, plumbers, and so on, because I have been taken for a ride more times than I care to remember. Will I see the day when the garage offers to maintain a complete service history of my car on their computer system, and make the service tangible through some kind of evidence that they have done what they said they have? Learn a lesson, I say, from the best service companies. Max Healthcare spent a fortune in installing a sophisticated IT system that will maintain complete patient records, including MRIs, CT-scans, prescriptions and physician’s notes. The patient need never remember to take all the old records when going for a follow-up visit. And their revenue from a patient over even a four or five year period is less than what a Honda or a Scorpio costs.

How frequently, alas, does your car come back with problems that did not exist before it went to the garage? The other day, my driver called the service manager at the garage and told him of one. The reply was that he (the driver) should have checked everything before taking delivery of the car! Sorry, my fault!

Auto companies had better start thinking in terms of service and convenience. Everybody has similar technology and technology does not manifest itself obviously to most customers. Service does. In the coming years, it may be the service that will separate the men from the boys.

Nripjit Singh (Noni) Chawla

This article originally appeared in Business World - 09 September 2003