Great Car. Bad Buying Experience

Aftre my research and deliberation, I finally zeroed in on the following car. Honda City, vMT, CNG, sparkling brown. And, what followed has been something that I can term, no short than a horrible experience. And, I vouch not to go anywhere near honda products, ever. Forget about only Honda cars.

The purpose of this e-mail is to let someone stand-up and take a notice of what's happening on-ground and something that needs to be fixed to ensure a consistent customer experience at all stages of the car /product ownership.

I am not interested in sharing the whole strory; but, do intennd to share a gist of what my experiences have been, with various dealerships, in and around Delhi:

1. Ace Honda , NOIDA. Sales Rep : Deepak Mobile # 7838XXXXXX. Visit to showroom and the reception was cordial. All test drives arranged as appropriate. No great experience. No explanation of the features etc. Required quite a bit of push to extract information.   Subsequent phone calls to inquire about availability of my specific model, variant and the colourof the car did not show enough response. In fact, during the e when I said, I will buy another car, a Verna. Deepak responded with quite an irritated tone. Sure, please go ahead. oops !

2. RIng Road Honda, Connaught place, Delhi. Not willing to forego my temptation to ride what I beleive is a fine car, I let my financier (Magma finance-this car is being bought through our company financing scheme) deal with the dealership, and conversation started with Parmeeta - phone 9718XXXXXX. I was told that there is a car available and off we went . All paper work done. Car ready for delivery at the CP showroom. Upon arrival, I saw that the car's bonnet had a unique patch that could not be removed even after all robbing, polishing that happened. After assurance from the dealer that the bonnet would be replaced, I sat in the car for the first time, and guess what. The fine beige interior's driver side hand rest was soiled. WHoops. Without listening to the next assurance of getting the car dry-cleaned etc., I just walked off the showroom.

3. Ring Road Honda: day follwed with calls like the car is fine now, and I should have a look and choose. I persisted that I needed a different piece as I never felt that car feel as buying a new car. After 3/4 persistent calls, they stopped. I re-assured that I will buy the car from them and the same one. The only condition is that I will want a different piece than the one that was being offered.

4. Ring Road Honda : My calls to check the fresh stock availability was always answred with a response "We will receive a dispatch schedule on 3rd May 2013 and then we can tell you if what you are looking for, is available or not. ????? Do they not have a process of booking a specific vehicle and then notifying the production of the same? Well, I would think otherwise.   Calls on 3rd May to Parmeets went unanswered. The dealership is really angry with me that I did not by a "not so fit"car from them, and looks like they are not willing to entertain my requests anymore.

5. Ace Honda: Call back to Deepak Mobile # 7838XXXXXX. And, he is very busy with Amaze bookings. Standard response. "Vehicle delivery schedule will come on 3rd May'13". I was about to lose it now; but, insisted that he shares a corporate sales manager #, and he promptly did - Manoj Sharma. Phone # 9999XXXXXX. 1st conversation with Manoj was a pleasure. Someone was understand the needs. It still required a couple of follow-ups to receive the first performa invoide; but, we managed. Manoj explained that he needed a LOI for the car booking and we are fine. And, then no conversation for 3/4 days. I did share his associate, Deepak's approach to selling, and Manoj promptly made a note of the same and promised to share the feedback with Deepak's manager.

6. Pearl Honda : Ashisk Kumar. Keeps calling me to check that I was interested in buyin a Honda City what happenes. And, everytime I have to remind him that I was looking for a specific variant, specific color, and then he acknolwledges his fading memory and all the past conversations. Very conviniently blames on the sales front desk staff who keeps giving him tmy # as an open sale and he promptly keeps calling me everytime only to realize that we have talked about this, umpteen # of times. phew!

7. Ace Honda, NOIDA: Curios to know progress, I called up Manoj, the Corporate sales manager, and I was promptly told that LOI was not received. A quick check at the financier revealed that the contact person at the financier was sick and the LOI wasn't received yet. I was informed by Manoj that LOI wasn;t received, and therefore they are unable to place request for production on time. He will check the delivery schedule and confirm back.

Manoj called back the subsequent day. And our conversation later during the day ended in a short chit-chat with a promise that he will check internally and call back on Friday 03 May'13. No updates received and.

8. Ace Honda, NOIDA: Today is Saturday, 04 May'13. My first call to Manoj went unresponded. He called back promptly, and by now, I had lost it.   I only told him - I understand the information not being available ; but, what stopped him for at least updating about the progress and finally, what options /alternatives do I have?   Manoj is finally promised that he will speak to his GM, check facgtory production schedule, and let me know if my Honda City, CNG, Sparkling Brown colour can be made available.   And, while he does that, I still go back and relish my experience with Maruti (I have four of them now). Four years back, for my sister's marriage, I needed a specific color of Sx4, and the GM sales at Apra Automobiles, Vasant Kunj had notified that the color was not available.

He not only prompted and kept updating me the progress, one fine day, he also came back and imformed that he was able to speak to Maruti and requested to make a new car of the color that I was wanting. WOW !, And all this conversation was happening while I was in bangalore and the sale was happening in Delhi.

That experience establishes a benchmark and a lot of car companies need to learn that per-sales/sales experience for their customers is the key to making some buying decisions.

I am off to either Hyundai Fluidic Verna (diesel) now, or my good old SX4 that has a refreshed feel. Honda is a fantastic car, I still maintain; but, unable to match up with Maruti's ability to make the customers feel happy through the whole buying process.   Alok 9910XXXXXX.