Maruti Suzuki launches bike-based emergency assistance team

Maruti Suzuki has launched a Quick Response Team (QRT) of 350 bike-based technicians who will offer emergency road-side assistance in 251 cities. The 24x7 service is backed by a robust IT backend.

The carmaker says this is a first-of-its-kind integrated initiative in India, which will be progressively expanded to 500 cities by the end of 2020.

Kenichi Ayukawa, managing director and CEO, Maruti Suzuki India, said, “Customer obsession being a core value of Maruti Suzuki, it drives us every time to come up with innovations to delight our customers. Started over two decades back, Maruti Suzuki is the pioneer of the road side assistance programme in India. The launch of Quick Response Team on Bikes is a strategic decision to rapidly attend to customer cars that may have broken down on the road. We are confident that this initiative will take Maruti Suzuki’s service for customer care to the next level of convenience.”

Each QRT biker will be equipped with essential tools and critical spares needed to quickly restore the vehicle in distress. Based on the company’s comprehensive training, the QRT technicians can handle around 90 percent of the problems typically faced by customers in case of a vehicle break down. When a Maruti Suzuki customer reports a vehicle breakdown, a web-based system identifies the GPS location of the nearby technician and assigns him for the complaint.

The customer and technician can connect over phone and see each other’s location and estimated time of arrival, through the Maruti Care App. The QRT on 350 bikes will join the fleet of over 415 Maruti Suzuki on-Road Service (MoS) vehicles to attend to customer cars across the country. Maruti says that its customers can avail the ‘QRT service/MoS service’ on a complimentary basis under the extended warranty offered on Maruti Suzuki cars. For vehicles not covered under the Maruti Suzuki warranty/extended warranty, the QRT service is available on a per-call basis with visiting charges ranging between Rs 420 to Rs 575, depending on location of customer’s car.