 "Ola Electric, troubled by service-related issues, enlists EY India to help clean things up")
Ola Electric, India’s leading electric two-wheeler company, has enlisted consulting giant EY India to help tackle mounting service issues and customer dissatisfaction.
The company, led by Bhavish Aggarwal, has been struggling with after-sales problems, including delays in spare parts availability, poor service coverage, and declining sales.
With EY’s involvement, Ola aims to streamline operations and improve its service network in an effort to regain consumer trust and market momentum.
EY India too has been facing a crisis of its own. EY faces scrutiny in India over the death of one of its audit executives, Anna Sebastian Perayil. Perayil’s her mother blamed her death on a “backbreaking” workload in a letter to EY India’s chairman, which went viral over social media a few weeks ago.
EY steps in to overhaul Ola’s service operations
A team of about a dozen EY executives joined Ola Electric a few weeks ago as part of a three-month service transformation project. Their role includes redesigning business processes, managing spare parts inventory, and expanding the company’s on-ground presence in areas where Ola has sales but lacks adequate service support.
Sources suggest the project may be extended depending on its progress, with Aggarwal closely monitoring developments.
Ola Electric has faced significant backlash on social media, with viral images showing dusty scooters piled up at service centres, highlighting gaps in its after-sales network. Complaints about software glitches, hardware faults, and service delays have surged, with as many as 80,000 grievances reported each month.
This led to intervention from the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), which recently issued a show-cause notice to Ola for alleged misleading practices and unresolved complaints.
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More ShortsPlans to expand service centres amid declining sales
In response to criticism, Ola Electric announced plans to increase its service centres from 400 to 1,000 by the end of the year. However, industry experts warn that simply adding more locations won’t solve the core issue.
They suggest that the company should focus on improving the quality of existing service centres to address the root causes of customer dissatisfaction.
The company’s challenges have also been compounded by high attrition, with three senior service heads leaving in recent months. These internal disruptions, along with ongoing service troubles, have impacted Ola’s sales and market share.
A recent report from Elara Securities, citing government data, shows that Ola’s sales volumes dropped by almost 25 per cent in the first half of this fiscal year — down to around 483,000 units from 643,000 units a year earlier. Its market share also dipped from 40.4 per cent to 32.4 per cent during this period.
Sales rebound amid discounts, but regulatory scrutiny intensifies
Ola has recently tried to counter the slump by offering steep discounts, resulting in a temporary sales boost. As of mid-October, the company reported 15,672 new registrations, pushing its market share up to 34 per cent.
However, the price cuts have attracted scrutiny from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which questioned whether Ola’s discounted prices undercut the government subsidy terms. In response, the company clarified that it had not altered its official prices but was running a limited festive promotion.
With customer complaints mounting and regulatory pressure increasing, Ola Electric’s collaboration with EY India comes at a crucial time. Whether this intervention can restore customer confidence and stabilise the company’s operations remains to be seen, but the company is clearly racing to fix its service model before further damage is done.
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