Thursday, May 14, 2020
By Manoj Kumawat
Maruti Suzuki Vehicles Start Reaching The Dealers
Going through the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic the auto manufacturing companies are working on a new strategy to increase their sales, and therefore extending their reach to their prospective buyers through online booking, providing the detailed information about the vehicle online and dropping the vehicle at their doorstep, following the social distancing principle. Following the same practice, the country’s leading car manufacturing company Maruti Suzuki India limited initiated its operations strictly according to the guidelines issued by the central government and invited bookings of the new vehicles online by offering lucrative benefits to the customers. Interestingly, within a period of less than a week after starting operations at its Manesar plant, the Indo-Japanese carmaker is reported to receive the encouraging results. According to Mr. R.C. Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, "We have received over 5000 bookings online. 2300 cars have been despatched and 1900 workshops have resumed operations."
Although dealers located in the red zone regions have not yet started their operations, yet the businesses located in the cities coming in the green zone have been allowed to resume the operational activities with the limited workforce in the industries and offices. At present, the MSIL has more than 2,500 dealerships throughout the country it has resumed its services only through one-third of dealers.
The company has issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) to its dealers to work according to the norms determined in the document ensuring that proper measures are adopted towards safety and hygiene factors. According to the new directions, the dealers will have to strictly follow the rule of social distancing. The same behavior is expected from the customers, they are required to fix an appointment with the dealer before visiting his showroom, undergo the thermal scanning and will be offered the facility of test drive only on demand. The vehicle used for a test drive will be sanitized after the test drive. Along with this the seats of the test drive vehicle will be covered with disposable covers and replaced after every test drive.
