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?
I'm surprised that you had to get it repaired. I would think the dealership should have given you a new sandwich maker to replace the broken one, since it was just a few days since you bought it.
ReplyDeleteNow your sandwich maker has basically become a refurbished one.
I think the whole customer satisfaction concept has to change in India, thats when the companies would change too.
it was good to read your blog on customer satisfaction..being from a Retail Background, i completely understand the need and seriousness of Customer Satisfaction...and it indeed is very sad to note tat though retail is maturing, Customer service in india is still at a very nascent stage...big companies, with big brands , beautiful stores and fancy baselines also lack in base customer service...the difference between Customer Service & Customer Delight is the difference between "sympathy" and "empathy", but indian retailers are far away from understanding that...actually our next dorr KIRANA guys porabaly are more customer freindly, being warm and empathetic, than the modern trade reatilers...Sadly enough, am a part of the same :(
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank both anu & payoshni for their comments, i think the fact that people are concerned about service or rather lack of it augurs well for the Indian consumer and we can hope to see things improve in future....
ReplyDeleteMany other customers in our country may share this sad experience. And there would be many more who just don't bother to have their grievances redressed.
ReplyDeleteAs long as customer service remains a 'department' this is bound to persist. I wonder if many of these complaints are analysed and the basic cause identified and rectified. It could be a design issue. For instance, I have experienced problems with water kettles of a particular type. The problem has persisted in the three kettles I bought in the last 5 years. And surprisingly I was conned into buying the same brand that I had problems with earlier.
The retailer as in the experience recounted by Rajesh is obviously more interested in selling new ones and so is the 'marketer'. And that is more sad for our Indian industry.
Thanks for the post! Getting customers feedback is very important. It's an opportunity for your business to improve customer satisfaction and for it to grow.
ReplyDeleteOrder taking service