Will turn corner in customer satisfaction in 2015: Skoda

In 2014 Skoda India opted for a major overhaul of their business. The Czech carmaker changed the positioning of its products, made strategic changes to its management team and most importantly, decided to focus on customer experience - the Achilles heel that cost it it's reputation.

Infamous for its poor after sales service and customer satisfaction record, Skoda India began to focus on customer satisfaction as part of a turnaround plan in 2014. A year down the line, the management says efforts have started to bear fruit.

Sudhir Rao, CMD, Skoda India says: "On internal paramters we've just had our best in five years. We're confident that in 2015, we will turn the corner on customer satisfaction."

But this required an overhauling of customer centric processes - like thorough check-up of cars that are stationed in workshops for more than three days and working to reduce the number of times a car requires the same repair work. Skoda has also worked on ensuring better availability of spare parts and critical components at key dealerships, and has tried to improve inter-dealer connectivity for supply of components. In a bid to shore up profitability, the car maker changed its positioning from being a mass player to a value-luxury auto brand last year. So while volumes have dropped, the company says its profit margins have shown improvement. This has been possible after Skoda delinked its pricing mechanism from that of sister concern Volkswagen.