[Iswear]

Originally Posted by sriturl

You are right on target. It is close to Forum.
Forum has two entrances. Go to the road which is Mc Donalds/Westside side of Forum.
Continue on the same road with Forum on you left, you cross Audugodi Police station on right, and go further, you will hit a signal.
Cross signal keep going straight, you will cross Mico factory(main gate) on your left, NDRI on right.
Around 100 m you will reach end of Mico factory compound.
Surakshaa is right next to Mico compound.

Now, that's like a DETAILED route description
I can 'see' Surakshaa now

[WhiteKnight]

Originally Posted by DHABHAR.BEHRAM

Why can I write the above paragraph? Because I am insulated from all this nonsense. I work on my cars myself. QED. I happen to have a unique ability of being able to "sniff" a car and accurately hit the root cause, a capability unfortunately not acknowledged by guys who are supposed to matter.

What more can I say? Best of luck. Do send me a PM and I will be delighted to guide you to provide you a delightful user experience with your car.

Best regards,

Behram Dhabhar

Nice of you to put these words. Truly appreciate. As a matter of fact, I never get stuck when I am faced with a hurdle, I work around it. So, my car never had any problems after that. Touchwood!

I have also gone through your thread on why customers have poor service experience. I always believe honesty sells- a true Obama way!

[Haren]

My experience with Bimal Auto Agency in Mahadevapura, Bangalore has generally been satisfactory for the past 10+ years. I have bought 2 cars from them and serviced them exclusively at their place. My loyalty was given a mighty jolt a few weeks back!

I had given my Alto for some accident repair (passenger door) and asked for a paid service after that since the car was due.

When I took delivery, I could see that there was deficiency of service in almost **EVERY** aspect of their work.

1. The door was replaced. On initial visual inspection I could see that the door was not sitting properly. Then I showed them that it was not even closing properly with reasonable amount of push. They took it to the shop for fixing immediately. While they were hammering away at the latch and hinges, I couldnt help but wonder if they had done any quality inspection at all to catch this obvious fault.

2. The rear hatch which was closing perfectly before the service, now needs a mighty bang to close!

3. The car was not wiped after a wash (or not even washed?). there was oil/muck on mirrors, glasses.

4. I had asked for brake cleaning and check up as part of service (and got billed for the same). I had asked them not to do wheel balancing (because they just add it to the bill all the time and dont do a thing anyways). When I took it to another place for balancing, I could see that the brakes were as dirty as ever, untouched!

5. The steering wheel alignment had gotten messed up by about 10-15 degrees. most likely when they were replacing one of the struts as part of running repair.

After all of this, they made the usual call from their "customer satifaction department" and ask me for feedback. I listed out all of these (and a few more) and gave 3/10 rating. Interestingly, during earlier episodes when I give 8/10 they will keep bugging me until I bring the car back and they get a chance to rectify the issue. Now, after a few calls, they have gone silent.

Of course, they offered to look into all of this "if I bring the car over to their shop again". this I dont want to do since it takes time and fuel to do that. Why could they not take care of these glaring omissions the first time?

There ends my relationship with Bimal! I am considering Kalyani Motors for the next trip. I got my insurance renewed with them and it was a smooth service. Let me experiment and see.

[Haque]

Are there any experiences to share wrt Bimal Yelahanka? Am considering buying a car from them.

[jaunthead]

So 2 weeks back took my celerio vxi for a general checkup, top ups and interior shampoo to Bimal Service, Whitefield. I had a trip planned to Coonoor during the 26th Jan weekend. SA Harikrishna took responsibility of the car and returned it by 5:30pm. I paid the bill after checking all serviced items and any minor niggles which the SA promptly addresed. Harikrishna had added a discount on the total bill which was nice. With the OK from SA and Bimal, I was happy to return home and looked forward to the trip. Upon reaching home I realised that the stereo control panel, which I had detached before handing over the car, needed to be reattached. I have a after market 1 din pioneer stereo with 4 JBL speakers. After attaching the panel the stereo display showed it was playing from all sources but there was no sound. I tried doing a system reset few times but that did not help. By now it was almost 8pm. Called the SA and told him about the issue and he asked me to bring the car back immediately. The SA had already left for the day but he had assigned two other guys for the task. They checked all wiring and tried to fix the issue but nothing helped. By now it was clear that during the interior cleaning some fluid must have entered the port where the stereo control panel connects and must have fried the amp ic. Harikrishna came back from his home only to attend my issue. To my utter surprise, instead of denying any responsibility for the damage, he owned it completely and said he will get it repaired at the company's cost. If repair not possible he will get it replaced. I told him about the trip which was 6 days away and I needed a stereo. He requested for 3 days for the repair and mentioned he will provide another stereo interim for the trip if the repair is not done. I was upset but not angry. The SA had doused any anger that was simmering inside. I was still doubtful about his promises. But I had to give them the opportunity to repair the thing. 2 days later, Monday morning 9am, I get a call from Harikrishna that the stereo is repaired. They fixed the stereo and I checked all functions. The stereo served well during the trip.
The whole experience could have turned awfully bitter if not for SAs like Harikrishna. I am now going to ask for his help everytime I visit Bimal and recommend him to others as well.
Let me know if you guys have had any experiences at Bimal Whitefield.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by jaunthead

To my utter surprise, instead of denying any responsibility for the damage, he owned it completely and said he will get it repaired at the company's cost. If repair not possible he will get it replaced.

I'd say this is more of a sweet than bitter experience. Mistakes do happen, but the response to those mistakes is what sets apart the average/normal from the good. And taking accountability for a mistake in such a manner is excellent.

The icing on the cake will be to see what the "takeaway" from this experience is for the service guys. If they learn to start covering such ports with masking tape before cleaning (like what detailing places do with the white tape), it'll be a good lesson learnt.

Good that you were only (understandably) upset and not angry - if all parties are working towards the common goal things go smoother, rather than a confrontational/angry situation where everyone gets defensive. Of course, it takes two to tango, so if the service centre took an unreasonable attitude, controlled anger would have been the way to go.

[Akib Khan]

Hi Jaunthead. That's a refreshing change from the scary stories we get to hear about horrible A.S.S experience we get to hear on this forum. Things like these reinforce the trust we Indians have in Maruti.

[theexperthand]

Originally Posted by jaunthead

Harikrishna came back from his home only to attend my issue. To my utter surprise, instead of denying any responsibility for the damage, he owned it completely and said he will get it repaired at the company's cost. If repair not possible he will get it replaced.

Awesome and I would agree with Arun and will say that this is more sweet than bitter. It is guys like this who build (or demolish) the brand - kudos to Harikrishna (And to Bimal)

If you have not done this already, please drop a mail highlighting his help to Maruti and Bimal to make sure that deeds like this do not go unnoticed.

--Anoop

[jaunthead]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

I'd say this is more of a sweet than bitter experience.

Good that you were only (understandably) upset and not angry

Yep you are right. And probably the only reason some anger was simmering was due to my anticipation of the situation about to turn bitter.

Originally Posted by theexperthand

If you have not done this already, please drop a mail highlighting his help to Maruti and Bimal to make sure that deeds like this do not go unnoticed.

--Anoop

Thanks for the tip. Will send an email for sure.

[Rajeevraj]

It is very rare to have an experience like this in this day and age. Assigning people to look at it even after working hours, coming down personally to meet with the customer, owning up responsibility and above all volunteering to fix it without the need for any angry words and escalations.

Things can go wrong. How it is handled is the key. So I would say a very very positive experience. Thanks for sharing.

I have always had good experiences with Bimal. I bought 3 cars from Bimal True Value and the main reason why I kept going back was the positive experience and general feeling of trust.

[gkveda]

Very nice to read such experiences. It is very rare to have such Service Advisers.

By reading your experience, I could not resist putting my earlier similar experiences couple of times with Nandi Toyota Kanakapura Road with Service Manager Dinesh.

Whenever I noticed such small issues, I used to call him and report the issue, he immediately used to ask me to visit his office and get either the issue fixed OR gives good compensation for the issue happened.(Read Discounts in next service)

One sample instance:
Once, One of the mats in the car was missing. I just called him and informed about the same. He asked the SA to search for the same but could not find. He called me within 30 mins and told, he would give Rs. 1500/- discount in the next service (Only verbal commitment). Next time, when I visited him, He only reminded me about the issue I faced during last service and asked me, what was his commitment on discount. When I said, Rs. 1500/- , he immediately discounted the overall bill amount by committed figure.

As many have commented here, mistakes can happen anytime and anyone can commit mistakes. But, Accepting the mistakes, taking accountability and rectifying the same is what makes people great.

[Altocumulus]

Originally Posted by jaunthead

So 2 weeks back took my celerio vxi for a general checkup, top ups and interior shampoo to Bimal Service, Whitefield. I had a trip planned to Coonoor during the 26th Jan weekend. SA Harikrishna took responsibility of the car and returned it by 5:30pm. I paid the bill after checking all serviced items and any minor niggles which the SA promptly addresed. Harikrishna had added a discount on the total bill which was nice. With the OK from SA and Bimal, I was happy to return home and looked forward to the trip. Upon reaching home I realised that the stereo control panel, which I had detached before handing over the car, needed to be reattached. I have a after market 1 din pioneer stereo with 4 JBL speakers. After attaching the panel the stereo display showed it was playing from all sources but there was no sound. I tried doing a system reset few times but that did not help. By now it was almost 8pm. Called the SA and told him about the issue and he asked me to bring the car back immediately. The SA had already left for the day but he had assigned two other guys for the task. They checked all wiring and tried to fix the issue but nothing helped. By now it was clear that during the interior cleaning some fluid must have entered the port where the stereo control panel connects and must have fried the amp ic. Harikrishna came back from his home only to attend my issue. To my utter surprise, instead of denying any responsibility for the damage, he owned it completely and said he will get it repaired at the company's cost. If repair not possible he will get it replaced. I told him about the trip which was 6 days away and I needed a stereo. He requested for 3 days for the repair and mentioned he will provide another stereo interim for the trip if the repair is not done. I was upset but not angry. The SA had doused any anger that was simmering inside. I was still doubtful about his promises. But I had to give them the opportunity to repair the thing. 2 days later, Monday morning 9am, I get a call from Harikrishna that the stereo is repaired. They fixed the stereo and I checked all functions. The stereo served well during the trip.
The whole experience could have turned awfully bitter if not for SAs like Harikrishna. I am now going to ask for his help everytime I visit Bimal and recommend him to others as well.
Let me know if you guys have had any experiences at Bimal Whitefield.

This is great ! Can you PM me his number ? I have an issue with my Ritz which Suraksha is unable to solve even after 4-5 visits and even keeping the car with them. Since I stay in Whitefield itself, I would definitely want to try them out.

By the way is this the one next to Columbia Asia hospital or Phoenix Marketcity ?

[jaunthead]

Originally Posted by Altocumulus

This is great ! Can you PM me his number ? I have an issue with my Ritz which Suraksha is unable to solve even after 4-5 visits and even keeping the car with them. Since I stay in Whitefield itself, I would definitely want to try them out.

By the way is this the one next to Columbia Asia hospital or Phoenix Marketcity ?

Sent you the pm. Yep it's beside Columbia Asia.

[Altocumulus]

Originally Posted by jaunthead

Sent you the pm. Yep it's beside Columbia Asia.

Awesome thanks a lot

[NPV]

Great customer focus and I would term this as a sweet experience since the bitterness was rightly nipped in the bud when you reported the problem. In fact, after seeing the initial thread title and reading the first few lines of your post, I thought that the SA probably did not keep his word!

Good to hear such positive experiences at A.S.S's, definitely goes a long way in building trust and loyalty for the brand and dealer