'As We Get Ready For India 2.0, We Clearly Have A Business Case'

Skoda Auto India , Direc tor – s ale s , ser vice and marketing , Zac Holl is , talk s to us about changing people’s perception of Skoda , the produc t s expected in the nex t year and what the bi l l ion euro India 2 .0 entails

- Sirish Chandran

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS "We’ve identified four key areas that we will be working on for the next two years. The first is brand desirability and brand awareness. The big job in increasing awareness is to implement it in some of the smaller, Tier 2 or Tier 3 cities where we’ve never had a dealer. Without a dealer, you wouldn’t know about us and we need to build awareness across the whole of India.

"The second thing we need to do is to work on our perception and our image of customer satisfaction and after-sales support. We have, historically, not delivered the best to our customers and there is a perception that our cars are expensive to own. We’re doing a lot to change that. Recently we have launched the six-year warranty, which will be in dealerships soon, so the customer will now be able to purchase a six-year warranty. We have reduced the price of our parts by an average of 13 percent over the last 12 months. I am working with our dealers to ensure they’re delivering satisfaction as well. This is also key: when the car does go wrong, how do you handle it and make sure that you’re changing this crisis customer into a brand advocate.

"The third key pillar is that we’ll double the size of our dealer network. We currently have 64 dealers across India, we’ll go to 138 dealers by 2023. And we’re doing that mostly by going into cities where we don’t have representation. As we get ready for India 2.0, we clearly have a business case. We need to start preparing for that.