Hero Motocorp Swiftly Resumes Retail Business With Strict Safety Guidelines

Hero MotoCorp, the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles and scooters, has commenced its retail operations with the re-opening of more than 1500 customer touch-points including authorized dealerships and service centers. These outlets contribute to around 30% of the Company's total domestic retail sales.

10,000 units of motorcycles and scooters have already been sold since the reopening of these customer touch points.

Keeping the safety and wellbeing of everyone as top-most priority, the Company has issued a Restart Manual to all its Dealerships, Service Centers and Parts distributors.

Hero MotoCorp also commenced vehicle dispatches from its manufacturing facilities for the current fiscal year (FY'21) on Thursday, May 7. All of Hero MotoCorp's manufacturing facilities across the globe had halted operations since March 22 as a precautionary preventive measure against COVID-19.

On May 4, Hero MotoCorp became the first two-wheeler manufacturer in the country to resume operations after it reopened three of its manufacturing plants at Dharuhera and Gurgaon in Haryana and Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

In addition to sharing the restart manuals with dealer partners and parts distributors, Hero MotoCorp has also conducted intense training programs though webinars reaching to 700 internal sales, after-sales employees and over 7000 customer touch-points, already.

Besides English and Hindi, the Company has released the restart manuals in 10 regional languages, which have proven immensely helpful in rural and interior areas. The manuals have a lot of visuals that accurately yet simplistically convey all crucial aspects to be followed. It is also providing guidance on the acquisition of key safety materials such as masks, gloves, sanitizers, disinfectants, and other equipment to the dealers.

The elaborate restart manuals cover the whole breadth of activities for restarting operations, from pre-opening preparations to monitoring & operating protocols post restart. The manuals provide guidance on –

· Deep cleaning

· Fumigation

· Safety marking of the channel point

· Rearrangements at the channel point to ensure social distancing

· Seating, washroom, work-station, equipment hygiene

· Staggered break times, staff/ customer entry protocols, use of PPEs

· Encouraging digital payments, careful handling of documents/credit cards/cash

· Staff training, entry protocols, social distancing, customer entry protocols

· Use of PPEs such as masks, gloves

The manuals also cover various other aspects like Pre-delivery inspection (PDI), delivery norms, home delivery, pre-booking to avoid customer rush, social distancing protocol in workshop, hygiene/care of tools, vehicle pick-up and drop protocols, and creation of waiting areas.

Hero MotoCorp had recently also shared similar Safety Manuals with its employees as operations commenced at its three manufacturing facilities. The Manuals for operations employees focused on safety and hygiene measures to be followed within plant premises. The Company is maintaining strict procedures to ensure hygienic workplaces by ensuring measures such as thorough sanitization of all workplaces regularly, sanitization of buses, shuttles and other official vehicles after each trip, deep cleaning and sanitization before daily shift commencement.