Numero Uno Merc to focus on after-sales

“The average age of our customers is down to 37 now. A few years ago, this was 45. This has resulted us in investing more on after-sales service by massively lowering the time to resolve customer complaints,” Mercedes-Benz India’s vice president, after-sales, Santosh Iyer said. 

Speaking at the company’s headquarters in Pune, he said one of the major initiatives in this area is to increase their Premier Express service centres to 12 this year from the present eight. 

The Premier Express service comes with an additional Rs 2,000 fee. He said one of the major reasons for faster growth, apart from its quality of cars, is the first-time buyers who are mostly professionals and drive their own Mercs, unlike in the past when the buyers were middle-aged businessmen. “Most of our customers, over 70 per cent, are first time buyers now and they drive their cars. 

They need servicing at the shortest possible time. So, we’ve launched a new service called ‘Premier Express’ under which if the car is not serviced in 2 hours, it’s done free,” he said. 

The other reasons for higher growth are the highest resale value and the lowest ownership cost amongst the luxe carmakers, said Iyer. 

Mercedes saw record sales in the March quarter at 3,650 units, while its 2016 sales stood at 13,231, despite the diesel ban. But this is way ahead of the immediate rivals Audi and BMW. Last July, Merc had launched the ‘My Mercedes-My Service’ programme, setting a new benchmark in after-sales standards.