Ask Us Anything on Ather Care

Hey folks!

Our Ather Care annual maintenance plans are now available across India at all 200+ Ather Service Centers. Got questions? Wanna know more about the plans? We’re doing an AMA session for all Ather Community members on the Forum.

When?

Drop your questions on this thread, starting now, and our team will answer them on Saturday, 26th October - 11 am onwards.

How to make the best use of this AMA

Our intent is to give the most engaged Community members a deeper insight into the way we build experiences and approach our product roadmap, as well as answer some questions about why or how certain things work the way they do. We do hope you use this AMA as a chance to get a deeper understanding of the work the team is doing or share user feedback that could improve the experience for all Community members.

Who’s going to be answering?

Swati Sharma : Lead - Vehicle Service Strategy

Arvind Gopalan : Channel Engagement Manager - Vehicle Service Strategy

Avinaba Ghosh : Brand Manager - Marketing

Rules

Some important rules to ensure a smooth experience for everyone:

  • No duplication. Read the questions that have been posted by others, in case you have the same one, simply like it to bump it up.
  • More likes, higher priority. The questions will get prioritized based on the number of likes it receives.
  • One question per post. Have multiple questions? Please ask them in individual posts instead of clubbing them in a single post. This allows us to answer each question clearly.

All of us hate to be spammed. We will try to answer as many questions as possible, and as quickly as possible. Stay calm and wait for your turn, no spamming.

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Can I redeem the Ather Care plan benefits at any authorized Ather Service Center? No. You can utilize the plan benefits only at the Service Center you have purchased the plan at.

This seems kind of a deal breaker, especially when service centers in Mumbai have been shutting down so frequently. What if I purchase a plan and the service centre shits down?

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Why have subscription changed from online in app to offline to service centre?

Till now Ather credits redemption was not enabled in merchandise and accessories site but it was working for Ather connect plans and service plans now even that is removed.

Why are you guys making Ather credits earned by OG customers in erstwhile refferal program obsolete?

I want to use those credits to upgrade my 450 gen 1.5 to rizta Z.

Anyone from concerned team waiting for your reply

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We keep reading about the mis-treatment of customers by Service centre staff and doing unnecessary changes and charging lots of money. What guys are you planning to do about this? Not all people are on the forum so they don’t know about it or raise an issue.

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From Ather users community group I understand different treatment in different service centers. can you make it simple, what kind of diagnosis you will be doing for a complaint. example: Issue : weak braking. S O P : Check brake pad, Brake oil bleeding, Oil level, Master cylinder and slave cylinder. Cost : For brake pad – xx, Brake oil – yy, Oil top up – zz

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Why Its sold by Service Center and We can’t mix between Retail Partners. Like we used to do with Ather Quarterly and Yearly Service Pack periods i.e 2021-2022

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Why are the Service centres so adamant about not selling spares to a customer and are insisting on leaving it to service, every large 2-wheeler company has a Spare shop in every service centre, so why does the Ather not have one in any service centre?

  1. When can we expect spares like switches and basic things like mirrors to be available on the market? UNO-Minda is your top supplier, and they should be able to sell them on the market. Is there a Deal that stops them from doing so?
  2. Why are the spares so expensive? A wiring harness costs 21000, which should cost only 3000-5000 to make. Why is the cost so high?
  3. In this new service plan, why are things like free belt replacement removed?
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We understand that flexibility in redeeming Ather Care benefits across multiple SCs is desired by a subset of our Community members, however, we’re also seeing that most Ather scooter owners tend to prefer specific SCs for all their maintenance and repair requirements, either due to proximity to their home/office location or acquaintance/familiarity with the SC staff.

Mapping Ather Care plan purchases & utilization to the same SC enables these plans to be financially sustainable in the long term for all stakeholders involved.

However, in the unfortunate and rare situation that an SC shuts down, we will ensure that you get to choose which SC the plan gets transferred to so that you can continue to use your Ather Care benefits as seamlessly as possible

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We’ve just recently launched AtherCare plans across the country after an initial 15-city pilot phase. While we’ve started with only Service Center (SC) sales to keep things simple and straightforward, we’re also working on bringing AtherCare to the app, where you’ll soon be able to choose your preferred service centre and purchase your desired AtherCare plan right from your phone.

Ather Credits are can be redeemed online (on the Ather App) to purchase Ather Connect and RoadSide Assistance plans. Ather Credits can also be used for purchasing Accessories and Merchandise products at our Service Centers, but not on the app.

You can see a screenshot below of an Ather Gen1 owner using his Ather Credit points to purchase an RSA plan. Fun fact : he also purchased a Frunk from an SC last month, exclusively with Ather Credits.

Ather Credits are currently not redeemable to purchase Ather scooters. However, we are working on bringing back Ather Upgrade soon for Gen 1 & Gen 1.5 owners. Keep watching our social handles for more.

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As a part of our Service Center SOPs, the following procedures are in place across India :

  1. Whenever a part is replaced, the original part must be handed back to the scooter owner along with markings clearly indicating the location of wear & tear/damage.

  2. All our SCs publicly display the cost of the most common spare parts near the Reception area. This is done with the intention of proactively eliminating cost ambiguity.

  3. We also have an Escalation Matrix prominently displayed at our Service Centers in the Reception area, which can be used to raise complaints or queries, if any.

  4. Our SC staff also follow a rigid Periodic Maintenance Schedule for every service interval (5K/10K/15K etc). This schedule lists the components which are inspected and replaced (if needed) at the time of service to ensure that you continue to have the best possible ownership experience.

You can view the PMS schedule here for Ather 450 and Rizta :

We’re also working on simplifying this and getting it in the hands of every new Ather scooter buyer.

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All Ather Service Centers (SCs) are authorized to sell spare parts over the counter. However, we highly recommend getting your vehicle inspected and parts replaced (if required) at our SCs only. Our technicians are regularly trained on repair procedures - keeping your scooter’s performance and safety in mind. Getting parts fitted elsewhere might affect your warranty and the quality of your ride.

However, if you’re facing issues in purchasing spare parts from any specific Ather Service Center, please reach out to us at customercare@atherenergy.com

All our spare parts go through rigorous quality testing at the Factory before reaching you through our Service Centers. While we understand the convenience of getting parts from local shops, we want to make sure you get genuine, quality-tested Ather parts that meet our standards. That being said, we’re working on making our spare parts more universally accessible in the future while continuing to maintain the desired quality benchmarks.

The pricing of our spare parts reflects the quality standards and rigorous testing processes that we maintain. While some components might seem relatively expensive, they’re engineered and tested exclusively for Ather scooters. Using your example, the wiring harness in EVs has a much more critical role to play as compared to ICE scooters (in terms of the functions it performs & the sheer number of systems it interacts with), hence, the price of an Ather-approved wiring harness is higher than the price of wiring harnesses used in ICE scooters.

Ather Care plans (and their benefits) have been designed after evaluating the actual usage and replacement patterns of components across the fleet of 3,00,000+ Ather scooters on-road. Adding Free Belt Replacement as a benefit would unnecessarily increase the plan prices for everyone.

Additionally, our belts also come with a 20,000 km and 36 months manufacturer’s warranty. You only need to adhere to the recommended PMS schedule (once every 5K kms) to keep this warranty intact and secure your coverage for any failures caused due to manufacturing defects (not including external damages).

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As part of our vehicle diagnostics SOP, all our Service Center staff are equipped with multi-level decision trees and troubleshooting protocols for a variety of issues such as brake jam, belt noise, display errors etc. Every SC is also equipped with a diagnostic questionnaire, which our Service Advisors use to probe the issue highlighted by the scooter owner.

You can view a sample of our 150+ decision trees and diagnostic questionnaires here :

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While we understand that flexibility in redeeming Ather Care benefits across multiple SCs is desired by a subset of our Community members, we’re also seeing that most Ather scooter owners tend to prefer specific SCs for all their maintenance and repair requirements, either due to proximity to their home/office location or acquaintance/familiarity with the SC staff.

Mapping Ather Care plan purchases & utilization to the same SC enables these plans to be financially sustainable in the long term for all stakeholders involved. This minimized the possibility of the product being revamped or taken down, like we had to do with the erstwhile Service Lite/Pro and Ather Assure plans.

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All the belts that broken under warranty say NO. The lock & key mechanism that failed in 9.5k KM say NO.

So you are saying the vendor source the spare parts to Ather warehouse and each and every spare parts are manually quality controlled by Ather? It’s a blunt lie, if you say yes.

There might be sample audit on the quality, but that doesn’t reason out to increase the cost of all the parts.

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But as pointed out service centres in Mumbai are prone to moving as well as there is constant change in their ownership how would these things be tackled if Ather care is locked to a service centre.

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Can get it now

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Majority isn’t always Matters, You should think of Few Customers who are Travelling a lot and Service in Multiple SCs. Okay Anyhow nothing gonna Change :crossed_fingers:

Thanks for the Update

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Ahhh. The simple 2-mark questions are answered in a 10-mark paragraph.

Trying to answer with a push of doing the exact thing that a consumer is not trying to do i.e. not to visit service centers as they cause mental distress. Warranty cannot be denied if the parts are fixed the way they are supposed to go.

What counter? Most ASCs here in Chennai, 5 out of 6, don’t have an over-the-counter sale. Three of them will constantly deny any parts sale. This is something to look into.

Bearing failed in under 5000km, wiring harness failed in 2 years, headlight moisture problem, List of M-errors, Display reboots all the time, Front crawl replaced more than 7 times still breaks near mirror holes, motor controller failed. According to the government that provides the RC, your product fails in just 4 years in a vehicle that is supposed to run for at least 15 years. I don’t know what rigours of testing you are talking about.

:saluting_face:

Sorry bad example, a switch in the market costs anywhere between 40 to 160 for any scooter, what on the earth is a switch made of to cost well over 600 including labour?

yes, I agree, how can testing increase the parts costs, it’s the parts manufacturer’s responsibility to make sure parts are made with the required specifications and not Ather’s responsibility.

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