A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
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A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
A few days back I purchased a sandwich maker from one of the leading brands of electrical appliance makers in the country. The product had a two year warranty and my earlier experience with the brand had been good so readily gave the premium for the brand. After the very first use the lights which indicate whether the sandwich is ready stopped working!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took it back to the dealer and he sent it for repair. I got it back in a couple of days with the problem sorted out. But thing which struck me was I was treated as any customer who would have any repair problems with his product within the two year time period of the product, the fact that I was more frustrated because it was a new product was not getting reflected anywhere and I doubt if the information ever got captured at the company's end. Maybe they would have noted the purchase date at the service centre but is that information being passed on to the manufacturing people in the company is doubtful. The damage to the brand is more when the customer experiences problems with the new product.
In his book ‘Pour You Heart into it- How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time’, the CEO & Chairman of Starbucks Howard Schultz cites many instances wherein the customer comments written in the feedback form were used to improve service and introduce new products. The importance to the comments given by the customers can be seen from the fact that Howard himself would read many of the comments personally. When would we have our Desi companies reach that level of customer responsiveness?
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