This incident happened exactly a week ago and just couldn’t ignore on putting up on the blog.
We (Dhivya, Gazelle, Arnab, Sada and I) were on our way back to Bangalore from Mysore after finishing Nitin’s engagement. All of a sudden, Dhivya’s car broke down in the middle of the road. First thing we did was to call Maruti on-road service for help. The call centre agent promised to send a technician in thirty minutes. However, that didn’t happen, we had to wait for more than two hours. It took so long for him to reach, in spite of giving out the landmarks and minute details about the location. We made couple of more calls to the call centre and then finally he reached. All of us heaved a sigh!
The moment we saw him, we were a bit scared, he was a lean, old guy who looked drunk. We ignored the looks and watched him work. He started checking the car, with a phone in one hand and occasionally asking some questions. In less than ten minutes, two Maruti Vans stopped in front of us. One man complaining there was no petrol in his car and the other saying something wrong with door-handle. The technician, who was addressing our issue, conveniently stopped and went to address their issues. By now it was getting dark outside (6:30 PM) and we were restless. I went to him and almost screamed. The look on his face was, as if he was doing a favor to us. He came to our car blabbering something.
After trying out all the troubleshooting steps for almost an hour, he finally realized that he can’t fix the issue. The next plan of action was to tow down the vehicle to Mandya, which was the nearest service station. He assured that it won’t take long. He tied a big rope from his vehicle to ours and gave enough instructions to Sada. For some reason, I always thought that we don’t have to do anything while someone is towing down the vehicle. I learnt that we still need to balance the steering and hand breaks. We cribbed, cursed, fought and rammed into his car while we reached the service station. He parked the car and we thought it was just a matter of few minutes, we were good to go. Without informing us anything, he got off the car and drove away in another car. We waited for about ten minutes and realized no one came to address our issue. I then approached a man who was fixing a car, he looked at me and said “you will get your car tomorrow, please come and collect it”. I was baffled. I said “excuse me, that’s not what the technician said, how do we go home now?” He looked puzzled and called up the technician and handed over the phone to me. The technician conveniently said, “The pump is worn out, and we will have to replace it with a new one. Today is Sunday and the office is closed, so come tomorrow, even before I could respond he hung up on me”. By now I was totally agitated and fuming. The guy whom I spoke to earlier was the branch manager and offered to help us. He made us wait for another two hours and finally agreed to fix the issue and send the vehicle to Bangalore. We hired a taxi and reached Bangalore at midnight.However, as promised they sent the car to Bangalore after two days with a big bill attached to it.
So moral of this story is:
We (Dhivya, Gazelle, Arnab, Sada and I) were on our way back to Bangalore from Mysore after finishing Nitin’s engagement. All of a sudden, Dhivya’s car broke down in the middle of the road. First thing we did was to call Maruti on-road service for help. The call centre agent promised to send a technician in thirty minutes. However, that didn’t happen, we had to wait for more than two hours. It took so long for him to reach, in spite of giving out the landmarks and minute details about the location. We made couple of more calls to the call centre and then finally he reached. All of us heaved a sigh!
The moment we saw him, we were a bit scared, he was a lean, old guy who looked drunk. We ignored the looks and watched him work. He started checking the car, with a phone in one hand and occasionally asking some questions. In less than ten minutes, two Maruti Vans stopped in front of us. One man complaining there was no petrol in his car and the other saying something wrong with door-handle. The technician, who was addressing our issue, conveniently stopped and went to address their issues. By now it was getting dark outside (6:30 PM) and we were restless. I went to him and almost screamed. The look on his face was, as if he was doing a favor to us. He came to our car blabbering something.
After trying out all the troubleshooting steps for almost an hour, he finally realized that he can’t fix the issue. The next plan of action was to tow down the vehicle to Mandya, which was the nearest service station. He assured that it won’t take long. He tied a big rope from his vehicle to ours and gave enough instructions to Sada. For some reason, I always thought that we don’t have to do anything while someone is towing down the vehicle. I learnt that we still need to balance the steering and hand breaks. We cribbed, cursed, fought and rammed into his car while we reached the service station. He parked the car and we thought it was just a matter of few minutes, we were good to go. Without informing us anything, he got off the car and drove away in another car. We waited for about ten minutes and realized no one came to address our issue. I then approached a man who was fixing a car, he looked at me and said “you will get your car tomorrow, please come and collect it”. I was baffled. I said “excuse me, that’s not what the technician said, how do we go home now?” He looked puzzled and called up the technician and handed over the phone to me. The technician conveniently said, “The pump is worn out, and we will have to replace it with a new one. Today is Sunday and the office is closed, so come tomorrow, even before I could respond he hung up on me”. By now I was totally agitated and fuming. The guy whom I spoke to earlier was the branch manager and offered to help us. He made us wait for another two hours and finally agreed to fix the issue and send the vehicle to Bangalore. We hired a taxi and reached Bangalore at midnight.However, as promised they sent the car to Bangalore after two days with a big bill attached to it.
So moral of this story is:
- When in crisis, look out for local mechanic who can fix your issue. Call Maruti on-road service only as a last resort.
- Technician will never reach in thirty minutes, be patient.
- Ensure you have someone who can speak a local language.
- Make sure you have the complete details of the location(where your car broke down) before calling the customer support.
