R.T. Briscoe Plc. has said it has no regrets losing the 11-year old business relationship it had with the Ford Motor Company under its BriscoeFord automotive subsidiary.

The company said this, recently, in reaction to Ford Motor Company’s decision to retain Coscharis Motors that was sharing the dealership with Briscoe as its sole representative in Nigeria.

Ford Motor Company had recently announced its appointment of Coscharis Motors as its sole representative in Nigeria while also stating that RT Briscoe would no longer be its distributor citing commercial and need for dealership consolidation as its reasons.

However, the General Manager of BriscoeFord, Mr. Eguaikhide Olorunfemi said the severance of existing dealership with Ford resulted from long period of operational challenges they had, saying “We want to state categorically that we have no regrets whatsoever exiting the Ford dealership business in Nigeria. We had since activated our exit plan when the signs became clear to us that medium to long term profitability could not be guaranteed despite all the huge challenges we face daily running the Ford dealership in Nigeria to ensure customer satisfaction.”

According to him, BriscoeFord’s primary concern was to do everything it could to ensure that the exit does not affect loyal RT Briscoe Ford customers due to their long term faith and confidence in the company’s brand legacy, spanning over 60 years in the Nigerian auto industry.

He said RT Briscoe had, prior to the latest development, asked Ford Motors to work with it in taking actions required to resolve challenges facing its customers in Nigeria.

As things stand, Olorunfemi said they want to know “What happens to our current stock of 60 new vehicles, amounting to over N500 million and stock of spare parts, amounting to about N100 million. We have over 90 vehicles belonging to our valued customers currently in our workshops awaiting warranty approvals and repairs, which have been duly communicated to Ford and for which no response has been receive.”

He said “RT Briscoe has a total of 24 Ford Focus vehicles with faulty semi-automatic transmission systems and Ford has not been able to give us support to carry out repairs which is however not peculiar to the Nigerian market.

“It is in public domain that Ford Focus and Fiesta models are having this challenge globally and as at date, no permanent fix has been deployed for Dealers to implement.”

The general manager said there are over nine law suits from some aggrieved customers, seeking or demanding for one form of compensation or another and that these cases have been reported to Ford, but that no serious response has been received to date.

He said “There are cases of customers who purchased the ESP package from BriscoeFord from October 2015 to June 30, 2016 under the promo, but were denied registration by Ford. These customers currently cannot enjoy the free service program from the other dealer because of this singular action.

“These customers are currently stranded and have been left in the dark as to what happens to their free service promo in the face of these administrative bottlenecks which they should not be blamed for.

“We would like to assure all the customers who purchased their Ford vehicles riding on their strong confidence and faith in the RT Briscoe Brand that we will not abandon them and will deploy all necessary resources at our disposal during this transition period to get their vehicles repaired and returned to them.”

In the light of the current realities, RT Briscoe said, “All customers with new warrantable repairs are advised to visit the other Dealer to enjoy their warranty repairs, which remain valid under the published warranty timelines and mileage as clearly stated in their vehicle and warranty manuals.

“Our major focus remains doing everything possible to mitigate any potential negative impact this exit from Ford dealership on our customers hence our request for a meeting with Ford Motor Company in our last letter which has not been replied as at the time they released their press statement.

“We remain hopeful that both parties can work together in the coming days and months to achieve a smooth transition of customers to the other dealer in market while resolving all pending repairs in our workshops for customers whose vehicles have been grounded.”

 

Source: Thisdaylive.com

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