If anybody has difficulty understanding the concept of a "black-hole", they should simply buy any Eureka Forbes equipment and place a request with the customer care center for servicing it. What happens with the service request is exactly what happens to any object that enters a black-hole - it gets sucked in never to be heard of again! No kidding.
Here’s my true experience -
27-May-2016 - Logged a call with Eureka Forbes customer care(080-39883333) for getting the tap on my Aquaguard Sensa repaired(which by the way was just replaced a few months back - bravo to product quality!). After a lengthy wait and an equally tedious call with the customer care female(forget her name - did not think I would need to jot that down for later), she said the call was registered, the customer complaint number was mentioned as 95560136 and I was informed that the problem would be rectified in 48 hrs flat and that it would cost me Rs. 400/- as service charges+ charges for the tap.
29-May-2016 - Nobody from Eureka Forbes came and neither did I get any service call. Called up Eureka customer. Mr. Madhusudhan answered the call(made a note to ask and jot down his name) and mentioned that the service number given does not exist! He confirmed that he saw a call log entry for 27-May against my mobile number(+91-9886358013) but that no service request was entered - Q.E.D for the black hole theory! Gave me a new service request number - 87368333 and confirmed that the problem will be fixed by 30-May 5:30pm.
31-May-2016 - Called up the customer care number again. Mr. Harishraj picked up the phone. Took down the details and guess what - said there is no complaint that he could see against my registered mobile number(+91-9886358013) - kudos! I then gave him the service number(87368333) provided to me on 29-May - was placed on hold for 15 mins. Finally the usual’boiler-plate-statement’ - issue has been escalated to the service team was parroted out. I asked him who has the responsibility of chasing it down with the service team to which his response was that his job is only to escalate the issue to the service team via their tool and after that if I want, I can contact the service center myself - Oh by the way, he thought this was amazingly helpful information which he had provided me! When I asked him what the service center working hours were, our chap Mr. Harishraj said that this did not fall in his scope of duties to answer. Q.E.D Black-hole theory again.
So well here I am after having given up hope of ever seeing my Aquaguard tap repaired(right now, the Indian jugaad of a pin stuck at the hole and turned with the greatest difficulty seems to be holding - not sure how long).
Way to go Eureka Forbes. I wonder how Archimedes would react if he came to know that his famous phrase also forms part of a company with such a devil-may-care attitude to customer service.
The only silver lining in the cloud - I do NOT have an Annual Maintenance Contract(AMC). Imagine paying upfront to these blokes and then trying to chase down their service personnel. Huh!