After our double celebrations barely a fortnight ago, today has been another exciting day for us. For today, Ford India opened not one or two or a dozen, but a whopping 28 new authorised Ford dealer facilities across 24 cities in India! Opening these facilities at the same time in across 28 locations – that’s a first of its kind news in the history of Ford globally.

This significant step makes it easier for people to see, touch, test drive, buy and service Ford cars, including the Ford Figo that will be on dealership floors shortly.

“Growing our dealership base, building strong business fundamentals and getting closer to our customers are areas of high priority as we gear up to launch our new Figo and enter this high volume segment in 2010,’’ said Michael Boneham, president and managing director, Ford India at a dealership launch in New Delhi.

Title: Michael Boneham with the Harpreet Ford team in New Delhi

Our expanding dealership base is part of our aggressive growth strategy, particularly in Tier II and Tier III cities. ”Tier II and III cities are significant for Ford. We have opened new facilities in 13 Tier III cities today, and more than 40 percent of Ford service outlets are now located in secondary markets,” added Boneham.

With the new stores, we now have 164 facilities located in 97 cities across India. Half of the 28 new outlets offer what we call full 3S (Showroom, Sales and Service) facilities, while seven are service workshops, and the remaining are sales showrooms.

Title: Nigel Wark, executive director (marketing, sales and service), inaugurates the new Chennai dealership

Michael also spoke about our efforts at lowering cost of ownership for Ford vehicles. “Ford India has been working hard and has been aggressive to lower cost of ownership experience across its product range,” said Boneham

Our success with the cost of ownership initiative has been a result of several strategies, such as:

• Adopting the ‘One Ford’ philosophy across product development and manufacturing processes to develop high-quality products of global standards. Our consistent advances in quality indicators like JD Power’s Dependability and Quality surveys are evidence of our efforts.

• Our growing dealer base and getting closer to our consumers. Covenience is all that matters – an example of a new showroom in the East Delhi metro rail station, the first Ford showroom in a metro rail station in the Asia Pacific. (If you’re in Delhi and travelling by metro rail, do drop in to check out Ford cars displayed at the East Delhi metro rail station soon!)

• World class facilities and innovative sales and service experience, like the Quick Service bays that perform routine service in less than 90 minutes, now across 45 dealer outlets.

• Offering best in class warranty packages and host of competitive maintenance and service plans for a stress free vehicle ownership and motoring experience—from 24-hour roadside assistance to scheduled service plans and extended warranty packages.

We’re looking forward to seeing our “game changer” in the dealerships soon! Are you?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Ford Figo Launch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.