[giri1.8]

As a business owner, it's quite annoying to see such establishments pretend to care about every single thing around them to stay relevant. First thing on their mind should be to provide extremely good customer experience, while making decent profits so that they don't close down. They should stop acting like naive celebrities. I mean, how does a company supports a particular cause or event? Do they have some kind of voting system to see if all their employees and customers agree? Absolutely NOT. It's just random post by a small team who are trying their best to fool their audience.

If you are into making cars, stick to that topic, tell us what makes your car good.

[ScorpioYadav]

No point reposting whatever has already been said & read in the previous 10 pages, so, I’ll put them in bullet points followed by my reactions & then proceed to type what I feel on the whole matter.

- SM posts by an MNC’s arm in Pakistan in what they celebrate as a National Holiday for brand building & as a PR exercise : Absolutely fine with me.

- Outrage on that post dealt by blocking SM handles of Indian users by its Indian arm & then a clarification which doesn’t clarify anything : Not at all acceptable.

- No damage control by the Indian arm or the Global HQ for the whole of the first working day post the issue : Again Not Acceptable.

This is where Hyundai has erred big time & should not have taken the Indian customers’ sentiments for granted.

But can monthly sales of 45-50k come to nought because of this? - I certainly don’t think so.
On the contrary, few cancellations will shorten the waiting periods for others in the waiting list !!

Should Hyundai be taught a lesson by boycotting its products in future starting today ? - I’m confused on this matter. One part of me says that the MNC should definitely be taught a lesson (not for the post but for how they handled the outrage in India).
Then again, another part of me says that can we afford to do so? With GM & Ford shutting shops, Honda & Škoda-VAG struggling big time & Toyota content in selling MPVs & SUVs for the filthy rich apart from lazily offering rebadged Suzukis to the mass market segment, can we really imagine a ‘Hyundai-Kia’less Indian car market. Who among the present players is equipped & ready with product offerings to fill the void in the short to medium term ? E.g. Do we have an alternative to Creta & Seltos ? Petrol maybe in Nissan Kicks but nothing in Diesel.

Q. What all we can do ?
The answer which I can think of is tag our Transport, Defence, Home and Commerce & Industry ministers with the screenshots of the posts by Hyundai Pakistan & make them aware of the knee-jerk reaction of HMIL PR & SM teams.
Secondly, what all of us can do & which will take the minimal effort is report those post by the Pakistani handles on all SM platforms of not only Hyundai but also of other MNCs. Mass reporting might result in those posts being taken down. For once, we should put our large nos. to good use !!

[TROOPER]

Since Toyota also seems to be in the mix, should we expect our "humble" and "country loving" politicians to let go of their Fortuners?

How about they lead by example?

Then all of us can chuck our Chinese phones in the recycling bin.

[Singh101]

The Instagram handle for Hyundai Pakistan has since removed their post about the topic at hand. It was still up around noon, last I checked.

To all who think it's "just fine", who call this an overreaction, throw around terms like "armchair Twitter warriors"..well, that's fine. You're right, this isn't infact China. You're entitled to your opinion as are all the rest of us. I personally see a direct correlation between propaganda perpetuated by Hyundai, Kia, KFC of Pakistan and the innumerable innocent Kashmiris and officers and jawans of our security forces that have died there. It shouldn't fly. But that's just my opinion.

Maybe this won't even cause a minor blip on their sales figures. Also fine- it's not like they were going to shut their dealerships and manufacturing plants and exit on the next boat out east by end of the week. It was about making a point. That, I believe has been successfully made.

Cheers

[aim120]

The suzuki pak ad supporting is in fact by a dealer and not Suzuki, as is the case with toyota ad again a dealer.
Without India Suzuki would be in the red, they have no presence whats so ever outside Japan, India and a few south asian countries.

I think this thing will not go away until Hyundai global steps in and offers a apology.

[saket77]

Absolutely deplorable. Both Hyundai India and Pakistan. I’m quite shocked by Hyundai India’s reply. They make it sound like they are the victims here instead of the sentiments of Indian people. Like we, Indians, should apologise to them for questioning them on a matter over which the two nations have fought 3 wars and lost uncountable lives, of both civilians and armed forces.
Hyundai Pakistan had a choice- to post or not. It was not a compulsion. But they chose to post. They could have easily stayed out of this. For God’s sake, you’re a business selling cars; not a political party contesting next Pakistani elections. If the tweet was from a local level, the HQ could’ve pulled that tweet down. But they cared about the local Pakistani sentiments, unlike Hyundai India. Back home, Hyundai India had to reply anyway but came out blurting ridiculous sentences meaning absolutely nothing in real world. Those stating Hyundai India and Pakistan are different entities, I would like to know how about Hyundai India tweets that Kashmir to Kanyakumari India is united as one. Only if Hyundai India has balls to post it. They should, as they are different entity and this shouldn’t offend Hyundai global corporate or even Hyundai Pakistan; isn’t it? But they came out with a post that basically question Indians that how we even think of boycotting them? They make it sound like they are the victim in the entire episode.

Hyundai India or Pakistan, I don’t care but my money will not go to a corporate whose two subsidiaries have different standards where one goes offensive and the other questions the tolerance of people.
For God’s sake, stop peddling a useless propaganda where no opposition will be taken as soft acceptance.

[TROOPER]

Originally Posted by aim120

The suzuki pak ad supporting is in fact by a dealer and not Suzuki, as is the case with toyota ad again a dealer.
Without India Suzuki would be in the red, they have no presence whats so ever outside Japan, India and a few south asian countries.

I think this thing will not go away until Hyundai global steps in and offers a apology.

The jury is out on whether the companies whose dealers posted can be let off the hook IMO.

When I was arguing with Tata motors customer support back in 2020, regarding some QC issues, the executive repeatedly said take it up with the dealer since they're the "face of the company" and represent us.

BTW what next? Some dealer posts something even more worse and the company wouldn't be responsible? I don't think so.

[SoumenD]

Woah!!! Yesterday when I checked here after seeing twitter outcry noticed the thread was locked. Now already 11 pages. Agreed to most of the comments here, Hyundai India’s way of handling the matter was the reason for outcry rather than Hyundai Pak’s original tweet.

Would be interesting to see if this leads to any difference in actual sales. I doubt that but never the less, will keep an eye on monthly sales thread. Advantage TATA for a month maybe?

[theAutomaniac]

Read the whole thread and now i know why mods did not open a thread on this topic on their own!

As an automotive forum we shall be discussing about the display of arrogance by Hyundai India and the cowardliness displayed by most of the Indian automotive media people (Gagan Chaudhary and Team-BHP excluded..... even Autocar did a namesake article on this aspect but still did not focus on the main part of the incident!)

Now instead of this, some of our fellow BHPians are discussing right v/s left, some are just fighting at this point and many of the remaining are just justifying the brand's actions with intentionally half-cooked posts! Brilliant!

Now that my popcorn bucket has been emptied, here are my two cents on the whole fiasco and what should've happened instead-

1. As the whole fiasco started with Hyundai Pakistan's posts, their Indian arm should've simply released a statement saying that Hyundai Nishant is not related to Hyundai India and ask the guys at Hyundai Worldwide to issue a statement on the same. They should've asked their PR teams to spread the word so their reputation could've been saved!

Instead, Hyundai being the arrogant brand they are with zero tolerance against criticism, did not even recognize their answerability the incident and added fuel to the fire by blocking people and reporting Instagram pages! An absolute masterstroke by Hyundai to damage their own reputation!!


2. Now to everyone who is saying that the hue and cry is illogical and it won't affect the brand's sales! Yes it won't affect the brand's sales much, but it will! Everyone who knows about this incident will surely have the flashbacks of this whenever Hyundai is being mentioned (basically another dark spot on the cloth of Hyundai India's reputation!). Again, when carmakers like Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors are coming up with better products, this will give another reason to people of the relevant ideology to consider rivals over Hyundai's already substandard products. And in a country where emotions are among the top influential factors, this ain't good.... especially when Hyundai's reputation has already been on a downfall mode since the past 2-3 years!

3. In the end, I am extremely happy to see how the Indian automotive media highlighted the manufacturer's arrogant behavior and did not fall for a trap to the automaker's threats or monetary incentives to stay quiet.

I wish I could've written the above paragraph unironically..... but unfortunately the media maintained the bro code of media companies of this country!! Sigh

Originally Posted by pacman2881

KFC seems to have come up with a more straight forward apology than Hyundai-

Attachment 2269626

All this fiasco could've been avoided if Hyundai's apology post looked similar to this! But nahh.... they are too arrogant for ending things humbly!

[AjinkyaP]

Quick Update-

Boycott Hyundai is no longer in top 30 India twitter trends, it has been replaced by BoycottKFC and BoycottPizzaHut at number 1 and 3 respectively for the same reason

[BoneCollector]

So Hyundai Power PK site was hacked and this is what you can see in its connect with us Twitter link. I took this screenshot after visiting the site and going to its Twitter link.

[theAutomaniac]

Originally Posted by BoneCollector

So Hyundai Power PK site was hacked and this is what you can see in its connect with us Twitter link. I took this screenshot after visiting the site and going to its Twitter link.

Attachment 2269649

Now this is interesting and a little too much lol! Guess the hacker did not really care what Hyundai it was but simply googled Hyundai Pakistan and hacked the link that came first!
But anyways, Hyundai deserves it for their arrogance. It's high time Hyundai is taught that taking customers for granted and being arrogant is not the way to run a business, regardless of how successful you are!

[digitalnirvana]

Originally Posted by ABHI_1512

Dear digitalnirvana, as a learned member of this forum, I would have expected you to quote me directly instead of putting up a screenshot of my post to make your uninformed view here.

.
.
.

Next time, do report my posts if you have any problems and quote me directly instead of putting up screenshots just like some people do on other social media platforms !!
Cheers

Hi ABHI_1512 thanks for calling me out on my uninformed view. Let me be clear, I have nothing personal against you at all. You're a regular contributor and well liked.

I have been vocal in the past as well all over the forum about use of language which has political connotations. My reason for quoting your post as an example was just to tell dragracer567 that its not OK to use such language. Of course it's just my view and everyone is free to theirs.

I have gone through the post and have reported yours and TROOPER's post as well - for use of "anti national" and "pseudo liberal" terms.

[jkrishnakj]

Tata’s had come up with some really cheeky advertisements in the recent past. I’m waiting what their creative teams come up with this time. Tata’s should now have their gloves out.

[dragracer567]

This is the response from KFC India on a similar tweet by its Pakistani counterpart. It’s simple, it is specifically mentioned that the post was made in another country and there is a clear apology. The reaction of Hyundai India to block users and the poorly worded response made it so much worse IMHO. We expect better than such knee-jerk responses from such a big MNC!