Anthropomorphized Greeting Tactic to Recoup Mislaid Customers: An Authorized Car Service Centre's Approach
Apra Auto India Pvt. Ltd. (Apra Auto), was one of the prime dealers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (Maruti Suzuki). The company was long known for its major success in after-sales car service, since its inception in 2000. In the year 2013, the company underwent a series of leadership changes and turmoil that led to loss of business focus. By mid-2014, the company attempted to rebuild its customer base and recapture their faith and satisfaction. At that time, one of the branches of Apra Auto in Okhla, Delhi, hired Roshni Mehta (Roshni), a business consultant, to revamp Apra Auto's brand image and business processes. As the first line of action, Roshni designed a campaign named 'Car Personify' to recuperate the old customers and win their satisfaction. The campaign created a primacy effect on customer's mind that his/her car was smiling after getting serviced by Apra Auto. The 'Car Personify' drive was designed on the concept of anthropomorphism - attributing human characteristics, behaviour or emotions to the car. The greetings email with anthropomorphic car image sent to the customer after completion of service was a successful tactic. The concept was able to simulate emotions and reaction among customers to spur positive feedback and appreciation. 'Car Personify' was popular enough to run for more than a year and engender business revenue for the Okhla branch. At the same time, other branches were still struggling to cope with the financial losses. By the end of 2014, Apra underwent a marketing shakeup under different leadership, which brought the curtains down for 'Car Personify' drive.
Apra Auto India Pvt. Ltd.
Apra Auto was one of the prime Maruti Suzuki dealers in India. The company was registered by Anumod Sharma on August 25th 1999, with registered office at M77/118, Connaught Circus, New Delhi-110001, India. However, year 2000 onwards, the company started functioning from its first showroom at 32 Milestone Complex, Gurgaon, Haryana, with paid-up capital of INR60,000,000 ($898,203.59) (Exhibit I).....................
Apart from Maruti Suzuki dealership, the company manufactured spare parts and accessories for motor vehicles and their engines5. It was also a well-known brand for maintaining good service quality and service standard in car servicing. The company’s motto was to ‘redefine customer satisfaction’, which fetched it the honour of being the largest automobile dealer of Maruti Suzuki cars in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR), with 5000 employees (permanent and fixed termed staff), more
than 1 lakh pleased customers and an average sale of approximately 900 units per month..................
Redefining the Marketing Communication Tactic with Anthropomorphism
Vivek believed that offering free or discounted services would not help to recoup mislaid customers. Nor did he have a hefty marketing budget to support large scale customer engagement drive. Thus, Vivek chose to maintain the service tariff fixed as per company’s norm without adding discount or freebie. However, a delightful review by the customers on the company’s website would fetch them certain discount vouchers on next major service. Vivek was determined to change his branch sales graph from declined slope to sheer progressive growth inclination.........
Anthropomorphism Climax
In the initial days of implementing the ‘Car Personify’ tactic, Vivek’s branch saw an improvement in sales, but the revenue generated was not good enough to compensate the loss incurred during the preceding financial year. Though the tactic ran successfully for more than a year at Apra Auto’s Okhla branch and overall there was an overwhelming response, the campaign was not the solution to the problem being faced by Apra Auto as a whole. Other Apra Auto branches were still struggling to revive their business. Despite all effort, Apra Auto was not able to revive its past business success. In 2014, Apra Auto underwent marketing shakeup under a different leadership and outsourced its promotion activities to an advertising agency..........
Exhibits
Exhibit I: Apra Auto (India) Pvt. Ltd. – Company Overview
Exhibit II: Company Financials (FY 2010–14)
Exhibit III: Company’s Directors’ Details
Exhibit IV: Anthropomorphized Car
Exhibit V: Example of Original Car (A) and Car Personify (B)
Annexures
Annexure I: Company Loss and Profit Statement (FY 2014)
Annexure II: Company Balance Sheet (FY 2014)
Annexure III: Company Financial Ratios (FY 2014)
Annexure IV: Company Open Charges/Borrowings as of April 2018
Annexure V: Creditor Graph for Open and Satisfied Charges as on April 2018
Annexure VI: Company Satisfied Charges/Borrowings as on April 2018
