Customer technical training at Royal Enfield.

During my lifetime, I had been a customer of many thingy, be it a Mobike, Bicycle, Television, Music Player, Refrigerator, Mobile Phone, DigiCam, etc., etc., But, so far I had never come across a programme where the seller gives  training to the customer for efficient usage of the product. At the most a manual / pamphlet accompany the product which would be advising on the Do’s and Don’ts while using the product. In rare cases, there come online tutorials.

But, the legend called Royal Enfield stands out of the crowd.

You need to just own a Royal Enfield bullet and that qualifies you for a training programme at their official Training Centre in Chennai. It was a one day program which is given for free, that too with a lunch.

More than attending the training, the feeling of associated with the courteousness, the team at Royal Enfield provides, does stand in my memory of customer service experience.

Now comes my experience of the day long itinerary.

The programme was scheduled to start sharply at 9.00 a.m. I set my morning alarm for 3.15 a.m.

Why?

I live at Cuddalore which is 200 kms away from Chennai and a bus journey of 4.5 hours adds up into my itinerary, if I have to whiz for any program at our namma Chennai. 

Got up at 3.30 a.m. and was able to set off from home at 4.30. 

What else will be pleasant, apart from walking for 15 minutes to the bus stand. At this early in the morning, there were none on this busiest of the roads in my town Cuddalore. Only a few bikes were whizzing past me, while I set my foot forward, to catch the ECR Chennai bus. Bit lucky, that there was no autowallah on the way. He might have seduced me to travel in the autorickshaw and could have plundered away my awesome experience of lonely walk early in the morning.

After 15 minutes of walk, an ECR bus to Chennai was coming out of the bus stand. There was no waste of time then. Reached Tiruvanmiyur at 8.30 a.m. Morning was less of traffic on the ECR and I am bit lucky to be on time as planned. The 30 minute gap was just sufficient time to reach the RE training centre but not to add a breakfast for my hungry stomach. I planned to skip breakfast and head straight into the Tiruvanmiyur Metro Bus depot to catch the bus. To my luck, there was a lady selling hot idlies near the bus depot. Pushed off 4 idlis within three minutes and went inside the depot. In a few minutes got to the bus.

Reached the bus stop on the OMR nearer to the training centre after a 20 minute journey. I am new to this place and alighted at this bus stop as instructed by the training coordinator of RE the previous day. At the bus stop, a man there, directed me to walk towards Mahabs. After a 10 minute walk on the busy but wide road, I realized that I was on the wrong direction. Now, it was too tiring on my mind to walk back the distance and then head-on to the correct spot. I then approached an auto, got into it to pay Rs.25 for a less than two kms ride back in the direction. 

Any way reached the spot and walked my way into the narrow roads to the RE training centre.

Got to meet one Pondicherry guy, a owner of ThunderBird. Realized that it would take another half hour for the training to start.

Got to peep into the showroom there, the Royal Enfield Stand Storm pulled me to come nearer and have a look. A Classic Bullet was also there making its commanding presence. There were few other guys awaiting for the training programme.

It was around 10.00 a.m. and totally there were some 12+ guys getting into the training hall for the interesting session throughout the day. First we were shown a video on the history of RE. Realized that the coming of the business and running of such a huge staple, is not that kinda a simple thing in the history of Royal Enfield. At one juncture, the swarming of 100CC Japanese bikes have left a dent in the staples of this legend.

Though initially bullets were coming from Redith in UK to India, now its different. Royal Enfield Bullets are only made in India and exported to many countries in the world.

Got to know that Royal Enfield is the first 4 Stroke two wheeler introduced in India. Initial period saw it being used by the military.

Then we were shown the simpler things that can be done in daily maintenance of the bullet. To my dismay, I have a right gear shift bullet and the tutorial were fully on the new UCE models which has left gear shift. Of the people attending, 4 of us were possessing Right Shifts.

Though RE has stopped right shifts owing to the stricter emission norms, die hard fans of RE, do vouch for the right shifts. Many of the tutorials had general maintenance procedures for the bullets and it can be applied for the right shifts too.But, a similar training for the old type of right shift geared vehicles would be of more help.

What came next was lunch. We had a tasty lunch at the second floor and then came back to the show room. In the afternoon, there got to click the photogenic bullets. 

After clicking the powerful road chicks, the session in the training hall continued.

 Engines of different models adore the sides of the training hall.  

The post lunch session called upon the real touch. We were exposed to the skeleton of the bullet. The parts of the bullet were assembled on a board and we were explained of the functions of each of them.

Then we were shown the engines of the old type bullet as well as new types. 

 The cut section of the bullet engines raised the curiosity in us.

One  of the participants was asked to meddle with the engine. Got to know the different vital parts inside this 350 CC engines.

This was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the vehicles we own. Thanks to the great efforts on the part of Royal Enfield to give enough of thought to give us such a needed awesome experience as a possessor of Royal Enfield.

Don't miss the whole bunch of the interesting pictures here.