I had always loved the way 450x looks in white. Compared to my white 450, the only visual difference is that the front handle shroud on the 450x is black. Just this one change makes the vehicle more sportier. Over the last weekend, got that changed in my 450 and this is how it looks now .
However the entire experience with the service centre for this exercise was unsatisfactory! Here’s the long story…
Two weeks ago, when the 4g upgrade was done, I’d requested for this change too. But this shroud was out of stock and I was told to get it done later. A week later (Friday) I called the Customer Service(CS) number to check and the part was back in stock. I requested the executive to schedule a pick-up. He told me that there were no pickup slots that day and it’d be faster if I could drop it myself. I was informed that if I drop the vehicle myself on Friday evening itself or Saturday morning, I’d get it back by Saturday afternoon itself. Even though pickup and drop is not chargeable for me, because I have Ather One 360, I decided to drop it myself as it’d speed up things (or so I thought). Also with this excuse I get to ride the vehicle at least(although it’s just 8kms).
By 10am I dropped the vehicle at the NS Palya service centre. The handover was smooth and in 10 minutes, I was out of there. I was told that someone would call later when it’s ready. But till 4pm, I didn’t get any call. I called the CS myself at 2pm, 5pm and 6pm to follow up and all 3 times I was promised a callback from the service personnel immediately and the vehicle will be delivered the same day. But as it happened, neither did I get a callback, nor did I get the vehicle. It’s high time that a direct number to call the service folks is introduced.
Then Sunday was a closed day! I then expected to get a call by Monday morning at least. But I only got a call by the service personnel at 3pm. He told that the vehicle is ready and I could collect it anytime. I requested him to schedule a drop. I was told that if the vehicle is dropped by me, it should be picked up also by me. TBH, I was baffled by this strange condition! I then told him that I have a subscription plan and I wanted the vehicle to be dropped as I was entitled to it. He said that they can’t do it like that. I told I’ll take this up with the CS and didn’t discuss it further with him. I called the CS AGAIN and they told they’ll arrange it and I’ll get a call from the service guy. I sure got a call this time but he told that all drop slots were full for the day and it can be dropped only on Tuesday. I was unhappy but I agreed as I didn’t want to go and get it myself. Finally, on Tuesday at 11PM, I got a call that the vehicle will be departing to my home. What was supposed to happen on Saturday afternoon finally happened the next Tuesday afternoon!
I was informed about the final billed amount. I asked them to send the card swiping machine as I wished to use my credit card and didn’t want to pay using UPI or cash. He acknowledged and told that it’ll be sent by default.
After an hour, the vehicle reached home. Guess what, the card swiping machine was not sent! This really put me off. I said I won’t pay in any other mode! (If I hadn’t asked for it before, I’d have probably paid in other mode). I was then given a payment link through which I could use my credit card (this was how payments used to happen earlier with Ather).
This was not the end…after I paid, I looked at the bill the next day and saw that there was a row item for labour charge! for my subscription plan, labour change for “any” kind of service is not chargeable. My bad, I should’ve checked the bill before paying. I now have AGAIN contacted the CS and have raised a ticket and awaiting a refund.
TLDR: Previously my experiences with the services were all good but this was the opposite. With increased number of vehicles on the road, this is probably their turbulent stage in setting things right at the service centre. Alignment between the Ather teams need to improve a lot if customers are to be given a good service experience.
An update here. The 4G hasn’t helped to solve the ride stats issue. The ride from my home to the service centre and some other small ones around my home are not appearing in the app!
I’m having this problem since March 2020 and 16 months later, there still is no solution in sight!
Below is what I’ve kept track of and the numbers are consistently inconsistent.
Creating tickets, sending it to IBC for investigations, parking in a different location with good connectivity, installing new firmware, upgrading to 4G…I’ve done it all now. The tickets are still open and teams are still working in the background. Not sure when a solution will come out.