Luxury car services in India far from extravagant

Luxury car markers may have enjoyed a comparatively smoother drive than most other auto companies who are riding out the slowdown, but with experts saying their customer sale services is far from top class. CNBC-TV18’s Farah Bookwala finds out whether they can maintain this premium positioning.

Also read: BMW launches 1 Series in India The sales service offered while choosing a luxury car can be deal sealer or breaker. But a recent study by JD Power Asia Pacific, a unit of financial data company McGraw Hill, shows that luxury car makers are not doing much to differentiate their sales service in India from that by mass car makers. According to the study, the delivery process, delivery timing, salesperson, sales initiation dealer facility, paperwork and the deal are the seven factors that influence vehicle buyers' satisfaction with their sales experience. Even when expectations from their sales experience were met, luxury car buyers were only marginally more satisfied than mass market car buyers, as rated on a 1000-point index. Mohit Arora, executive director, JD Power APAC, "In a market like India, the amount of money spent on a luxury car Is clearly much, much higher as compared to average household incomes in general in the country.I would say, that these expectations are further heightened as compared to what any luxury manufacturer would be experiencing around the world." In the Indian luxury car market, the average sales satisfaction notched 873 points on the 1000-point index. While German car-maker BMW was found to be higher than this average, Mercedes Benz and Audi fell short. Commenting on the study, Mercedes-Benz India said, "We do not subscribe to JD Power and therefore is not aware of the methodology used for the study. We cannot therefore comment on their findings. Mercedes-Benz India strives to provide superlative sales and after-sales services to its customers." But considering the high loyalty that luxury brands enjoy, can below-average sales service actually impact sales? “There would be those brand switches that would happen, that if I am not very happy with the performance of a particular brand, I would then switch to another brand, where I hope to get a better service,” adds Arora. And given that the luxury car market aims to grow four-fold by 2020, experts say its time luxury car makers polish their sales service.