22-Jan-07
Our washine machine (Senorita plus purchased in May 2005) had a minor problem (belt slippage) on Sunday, 14th Jan 07 and we informed the service call center (19014255678) on 16th morning (15th Monday being a holiday). A day later on Wednesday a service engineer from Harinidhi Enterprises looking after Thippasandra area in Bangalore came and "repaired" the machine. During this repair did something and ended up short-circuiting the motor.
He assured he’d be back the next day and change the motor but did not turn up. After repeated calls (on Thurdsay and Friday) to the call center and hearing assurances that they’ll send a person “immediately”, on Saturday I finally asked for the number of Harinidhi. On contacting the agency they assured us that they’ll check the stock if there’s spare motor and let us know. I called at least 5 times that day to know the status of my complaint and every time there was a different answer. By evening Mr. Raghavendra in the agency told me that the he’d send a person by Monday evening with the motor and repair the machine.
I promptly called on Monday morning only to be told that the motor will take another 4 days to arrive and it would be Friday (26th Jan) before they could come and fix it. I really got mad at this point and threatened to take this matter directly to the company or consumer court if they continued playing like this. I called Mr. Raghavendra again in the afternoon and gave him a piece of my mind but still his reply was that the motor would take its time arriving.
Meanwhile at around 3.00PM my wife, very frustrated with the ever growing hills of unwashed clothes, wrote a feedback on the IFB website voicing our troubles due to the inefficiency of the service agency quoting our complaint number. https://ifbappliances.com/home_appliances/customer_feedback.htm
Miraculously just 15 mins later she received a call from the head office in Calcutta and one Mr.Gaurav assured that the motor will be replaced by 7.00 PM that day! The service engineer did come by around 7.30PM with a new motor and repaired the machine in no time.
All this took at least 25 phone calls to the service call center and the service agency yielding no result but just one e-mail to the right place giving the right response in just under 5 hrs.
btw there’s an online compliant regn also https://ifbappliances.com/home_appliances/complaint_reg.php
Will IFB wake up to realize that a good product alone cannot win and maintain a product’s market share, the service also matters a lot. Their service process and response time needs a real dekho… it takes a full day for the complaint call center to let the agency know about the problem and then another day for them to respond.
The qualification of the service engineer, who comes to repair a machine but ends up further spoiling it, is in itself questionable.
Lastly there’s no reason why the agency or the call center cannot be transparent to the queries of customers as to when exactly their machine will get repaired and own up the responsibility of keeping them informed of the status of their complaint. They only want their service contracts renewed or selling accessories.
This is our second bad experience (read below) with the IFB’s service agencies previous one was for the installation. IFB needs to tie-up the lose ends between Sellingthemachine and installation through to service.
10th May 2005
We bought a Senorita Plus on 10th May 2005 from Viveks on Indiranagar on 100ft Rd Bangalore. IFB was the only choice and to confirm this I’d gone through the reviews on the product on Mouthshut.com to choose the best model. The machine was delivered a day late on 12th but the service personnel did not come that day or the next. After a lot of follow-up and shouting at the service center people of IFB and also at the Manager of Viveks over the next two days the guy came on 14th night at 8.00 PM. On opening the cover we found that the front panel had broken during transit. Also he said that we had to do the required plumbing ourselves. He departed after a promise to be back within the next 2 days to replace the panel. It was finally replaced only 4 days later. We got the required plumbing done and luckily we’ve not had any further problems with the machine so far. From our experience we have had problems with the Humans we were interacting with who turn the joy of buying a new appliance into an utter nightmare..... Are the people whose bread and butter is ’’Selling’’ reading this. Responsibility does not end right after you’ve been paid for what you’ve sold. Not these days.......