Skoda 100K Dash | OVERDRIVE
1,00,000 Skoda's sold in two years, a milestone for the company achieved in the shortest time in its two decade legacy in India.
November 2001 saw Skoda enter India as a premium brand with the Octavia sedan. The Brand promptly established a stable fan base for itself with the driving dynamics, build, design, and safety. Fast forward 22 years, and the evolution of the Indian market and Skoda Auto India is apparent. From the maker of premium European cars. The year 2021 saw Skoda bring out tailor made cars for India. First with the Kushaq SUV in July 2021 and the Slavia sedan in March 2022. The made for India approach gave them the grand appreciation from the country and led the company to see huge growth in the upcoming two years.
The Kushaq and the Slavia based on their MQB-A0-IN platform won it all for them, as Skoda rose to significance in terms of- sales, network, customer touchpoints and even service and warranty packages. When you build trust, people never let you down, and Skoda did just that with their carefully curated and thoroughly safe cars and gave the growing Indian population cars that brought a solid European lineage with low maintenance costs and a hassle-free ownership experience.
This milestone of selling over 1 lakh cars within a record time of their 2-decade history in India is an iconic feat which placed India as the chief diver of growth in the company's global operations.
The ever evolving Indian market is appreciating and demanding safety measures in cars, especially crash safety. Skoda played an essential role in bringing in this mind set and concentrated on what is important, safety. Hence a no compromise attitude went behind developing, designing and engineering the made in India Kushaq and Slavia both. The results were evident with both earning a full 5-stars at the Global NCAP crash tests for both adult and child safety. This made them the first made-in-India cars to get 5-stars for both adult and children. And they did this under the then newer and stricter crash test protocols. This further built trust among the customers and proved that their India-developed platform and products saw no compromise in technology, build quality, safety and driving dynamics, yet catering to the needs of the Indian customer like cost of ownership, maintenance, parts availability, , quick turnaround times, ease of parts availability and building a deeper and wider network.
The speed with which Skoda is worked towards enhancing their network across the country is astounding. The strategy led to an over 100% increase in customer touch points, from 120 to 260 in two years and hence a greater brand presence. Here the presence comprises dealerships, state of the art service stations which meet global standards and an attitude towards building a long term positive relationship with the customer.
This led us to dig deeper and we connected with customers to know what they feel about Skoda as a brand and they were ecstatic about attaining their dream car and also the entire ownership experience that followed. We also went ahead to ask customers as to how the changes have helped them and they seemed to be satisfied with the worry free service experience. They claimed the service to be seamless, transparent and cost effective. The most important thing for any Indian car owner.