Service on wheels: Maruti to increase mobile service vans to 300+ by fiscal-end

With an increase in demand for doorstep servicing of vehicles amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Maruti Suzuki has planned to increase the number of its mobile service vans to over 300 by the end of this fiscal. This will be done under its Service on Wheels initiative.

The company's mobile service fleet has undergone digitisation and safety and hygiene measures, thus it has been able to perform better and garner more demand in the second quarter as compared to the same period of 2019-20, before the pandemic hit. "Maruti service bounced back very quickly after the Covid-19. Our service on wheels has become a huge hit. The customers today are preferring that," the company's Senior Executive Director - Service, Partho Banerjee told PTI.

Maruti currently has 250 Service on Wheels mobile vans, which the company achieved in a span of one year. “We are ramping it up at a very fast pace because the dealers as well as the customers, are more interested in going for servicing done at their doorsteps," said Banerjee.

He added that people are preferring mobile servicing even in rural areas. “Customers are so happy they don't have to go to workshops. Also, in many places, it is practically not possible to have a big motor workshop," he added.

Banerjee further said that the growth of its service on wheels is related to the pandemic as the demand has primarily increased after the coronavirus with people avoiding to go to workshops. “Our pace of growth was to the tune of 20 per cent in the second quarter," he said.

In the first quarter, the growth of the mobile service was less due to the lockdown and the second wave of the pandemic. Banerjee added that paid mobile services is one of the critical criteria by which the company is able to judge how many customers are coming back.

(with inputs from PTI)