With much anticipation Ford India had just launched their compact hatchback – Ford Figo in India. It was launched in booming sub-segment of hatchbacks; traditional bastion of Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai.The 4Ps of the product were solid though, priced extremely competitively, loaded with features, all pleasing contours, built like a bull, and everything that an Urban Entry level Smart car should have and more.
Still not many were willing to wager on the product – after all it was Ford and India 
.
I had laid my sights on the vehicle. Despite naysayings of friends and family (the first line of influencers), I went ahead and Figo was home. Pretty soon, before I could realize I had fallen in love with her. it was christened as well ‘Greyhound’! To me, it was money well spent rather invested.
The vehicle though received good success later and like with ‘most successes’, Ford dealers started taking it easy, atleast the ones I knew.
In one such incident, Greyhound had gone for it’s scheduled service and was deemed to have been serviced and pampered when I got a call to collect the vehicle in the later part of the day. I went to the service center and realized that other than clumsy job of wet washing nothing else had really been done to the vehicle. It was the same old engine oil, air and oil filter hadn’t been cleaned. I checked with the service center dealership staff and they were pretty casual about it. I threatened to escalate the matter and they were cool about that as well. Seething in anger, I collected Greyhound and fired a mail same night to the Ford customer care elaborating on all that my beloved had gone through.
Would they care about my Greyhound when they were selling thousands of those – Reality dawned upon me and I itched to do more. Fishing the internet, I stumbled upon the Email ID of Michael Boneham – the then Managing Director of Ford India. Not wasting a moment I also wrote him the ordeal that Greyhound and I had gone through. I also warned him to either read through the entire mail or not read at all.
Well not only did I get a response back from Mr. Boneham but he went an extra yard. He called me up from his desk phone and in a conference call with Customer service Head India issued a reprimand to the concerned dealer and had my car re-serviced without a penny, at a place of my choice, and upto my utmost satisfaction!
He wrote me a mail again, a few days later checking if I had gotten the work done to my satisfaction.
Mr. Boneham had just taught me my biggest lesson in customer centricity, I am glad it came to me early in life.
In another incident Greyhound had been bruised and front ended. It had been at dealers’ place for repair and paint job. They wouldn’t release my vehicle on the agreed date because the Insuring Company hadn’t released their funds. I needed Greyhound desperately, I had go pick parents and leave for a long planned 2 day trip.
What do I do, I call up the fall back guys, (no mail this time) Ford India Customer service. They gladly obliged put their weight behind the me – the Ford Patron and their customer. They had my vehicle released in a matter of minutes. Well they had just gone past their ‘Call of Duty’. I doubt if any other vehicle manufacturer would do that in India.I have had vehicles from atleast 4 other manufacturers, of those I am quite sure – they wouldn’t even bother calling back after hearing me.
I felt so connected to the Brand and the Product after these events, I felt as if carried a little of them with me; as if I had a stake in their success and that I had to speak favorably and truly of them.
They had owned me for life. They had owned me for atleast next 6 -7 vehicles (that i would guess be the number of vehicles a person of modest means would acquire through his lifetime).
Ford India had gone beyond the traditional ‘4P’s of marketing and customer acquisition, they had added People (the 5th P) and Passion (the 6th P) to it. I mean, the additional Ps could be any other adjective but the essence will not change.
Organizations are inanimate, dispassionate – they merely reflect the character of people who drive them. Mr.Boneham and his team had brought the additional Ps into the system – I could see it and I am sure there would be many more stories like this.
Michael doesn’t work at Ford anymore but I am proud of my epistolary friendship with him till this day and will be so for many more years to come.
These days I don’t drive a Ford but I wait for the day when I will get back to Ford again even if that means compromising on the traditional 4Ps but the additional 2Ps have to be either at parity or more than what they were around half a dozen year back.
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