What are the levels of service that you should expect as a consumer ?

Vir Sanghvi's weekend column on Hindustan Times, Rude Food, depicting the quality of service levels that you come to expect in India these days.

My experiences over the weekend were rather on similar lines as presented in Mr. Sanghvi's post only that it did not happen at any CCD outlet but at a car showroom.

The car that we own is 3 years old and we had purchased it using a bank loan. To our surprise, we saw that that even after paying 36 EMI's we still had another EMI due. Considering that we had paid an advance along with an initial amount when booking the car we assumed that we would have to pay 35 more EMI's. We got in touch with the concerned bank straightaway and the explanation that they provided was satisfactory, that they had started deducting the monthly installment amounts after the disbursement of the loan. Checking the statements also showed that they were correct. So why would we be paying 37 EMI's instead of 36. Here we got in touch with the Maruti dealer in Noida form whom we had purchased the car, Vipul Motors.

A certain assistant general manager of the showroom Mr. Singh, welcomed us. I took great pains to explain the problem making it clear that we had paid 37 EMI's instead of 36. He tried to explain something and then said that since he was not sure he would get back to us in a couple of days. He took our phone numbers promising to get back as soon as possible.

The wait begun, a week, two...it seemed never ending. So after exactly three weeks, I visited their showroom again last Saturday. Once again we are greeted with this blank smile. Out tumbles the excuses, "Main apka file..nikaal ke rakha tha..mil nahin raha hain.". Ok we say, so did you clarify the issue that we had pointed out.

Now when we managed to coerce them into finding the file, I asked the manager that what is it that took so long. He said that my father expired. On hearing this I said sorry, but lets get down to the business. What followed was an arduos three hours of haggling with him and the finance manager of Vipul Motors. The entire explanations that they were coming up were hilarious to say the least.
Seriously I have not seen anyone do math that way, not in my lifetime.

At the end of every round of calculations, we arrived at the conclusion they 12000 in the negative. I finally lost it, saying they could keep the money as change. Arseholes as they are, they gleefully agreed. The attitude with the car dealers especially Maruti in the NCR region is that aas long as you are a wannabe customer, they will even lick your ass, but once you buy a car they simply forget you. Neither behavior is in anyway desirable. I do not think I am the only person to suffer in their hands, I know of a few others who have faced this.

The problem was finally semi-amicably solved when they agreed that their salesman, a certain gentleman called Ankit ( i dont remember his full name) had managed to siphon both us and the dealer of the money. Not that it affects the dealer much, they have got what was due to them. It is customers like us who are the ones to suffer and there is nothing much that we can do in this respect. Albiet I would be doubly careful the next time I go to buy a car. And please get evverything in written from the dealer. The salesmen around are easily the most easygoing liars that you will ever find.

Nuff Said..

Cheers