Castrol launches its flagship BikeZone in Hyderabad

Release date: 13 May 2008

Hyderabad, May 13, 2008 – Castrol India Limited, the leader in the Indian retail automotive lubricant market, today launched its flagship Castrol BikeZone at Kukatpally Housing Board in Hyderabad. The inaugration of this upgraded, “professional” service centre by Mr. Naveen Kshatriya, Managing Director, Castrol India Limited also marks the launch of the 100th Castrol BikeZone in India. This indicates the success of the pioneering Castrol BikeZone concept and reaffirms Castrol’s commitment of providing world class products and services to its consumers.

Speaking at the launch, Mr Naveen Kshatriya, Managing Director, Castrol India Limited said, “Castrol India is a successful business which is driven by strong brands, enduring relationships, and the power of its people. We have been a driving force of India’s lubricant industry, having been providing high technology and quality products to Indian consumers for almost 100 years now. During this period, we have been acknowledged as the technology leaders and pioneers in lubricant technology and the BikeZones have been launched with the objective of extending our relationship with our consumers ‘beyond lubricants’.

The BikeZone business was launched based on feedback we received from our consumers who were looking to Castrol to build on their reputation for providing high quality products to providing high quality servicing. It seemed to be an obvious progression and given the fast growth in the two wheeler population, there is already a shortfall in the servicing industry. By entering this segment, we hope to fill this gap and provide consumers high quality of service backed by the trusted Castrol brand. The BikeZones also provide an opportunity for local entrepreneurs to participate in an exciting venture, in turn providing job opportunities to the local mechanics.”

According to Mr. Mubeenuddin – Vice President, Castrol BikeZone, “Today, in Hyderabad, we are proud to announce the launch of our first professional BikeZone format which is a milestone for Castrol and reinforces our position in the forefront of innovation, and technology.”

The flagship service centre has some unique features which are not available anywhere else in the country. Besides the general 3-lean service menu options which are available at all Castrol BikeZones – Gold, Silver and Bronze, the Kukatpally BikeZone has the Turbulator - an automated bike cleaning system which ensures consistency in washing, better quality of bike wash and reduces the washing time from twenty five minutes to ten minutes. This is a new technology designed and developed by Castrol. This BikeZone also has a water recycling facility and this ensures that there is optimum usage of water thus reducing water requirements by two-thirds. With state-of-the-art technology and expert mechanics trained and certified by Castrol, the customer is guaranteed a service that is best in class.

Special Features of Castrol BikeZone – Flagship Outlet

Introducing Turbulator - the Automated Bike Cleaning System
Water recycling facility
Customer lounge on the mezzanine floor spread over 500 Sq ft.
Additional customer facilities like TV, Internet kiosk, games, coffee vending machine
Bike Beautification and pick up and drop service
Retailing of sunglasses premium helmets
10 ramps in a total area of 4000 Sq Ft.

Besides providing personalized attention and transparency in service, the new format is also designed on the core propositions of being environment friendly, technologically advanced, innovative in design and providing enhanced customer experience. These additional benefits have been introduced so as to make the experience of our customer even more worthwhile.”

To enhance customer experience and ensure transparency in servicing, the customer can oversee the activity comfortably ensconced in the lounge overlooking the servicing amenities, equipped with TV, internet connectivity and sale of specially designed, high quality merchandise.

With this launch, Hyderabad will now have 14 Castrol BikeZones. Castrol BikeZones are also operational in nineteen cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Trichy, Mysore, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi, Faridabad, Noida, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Pondichery, Ahmedabad, Surat, Lucknow, Rajkot and Kanpur.