Recently I have had a very bad experience with maintenance and servicing of your product. I am not talking about the product itself but the support provided for them by your so-called "engineers". In the last year, I have called them more than 4 times. The way they approach the solution and handle things has really made me upset. Really shocking to me was that they had no standard procedure to approach the issue. Considering working of your product as a finite set of steps one after another say(step1 then step 2 then step 3 and so on). As a normal human being with normal analytical skills, we know that if the water is not coming in the last step, then you must check every step one by one up to which it is coming. A device not working at say step 5 will not allow water to pass in steps 6, 7, 8.final step. And expected device to be replaced is at step 5 and then again keep checking if the water is coming in the last step or not. If not, then continue with step 5 onward. This is what is expected from your engineers.
In contrary to this what your engineers do is they will see the last stage that the water is not coming and blindly tell you that you need to change the device at step 4, 6, 7(totally random) because the company suggests replacing that part anyhow in this time period. (99% of the time they mention filters here). I just can’t get this. How without even inspecting which step is causing the issue, they directly come to the conclusion that(filters) at these random steps need to be replaced.
Few points to be noted here are as follows:-
1- Why are not they following the right approach?
2- What if the issue was only in step 2 and they have already replaced devices at steps 4, 6, 7(random). To fix the system as a whole, they ultimately will have to replace the device at step 2. But they never re-verify whether the device at steps 4, 6, 7 was fine or not. Who is at the losing end here? " The customers" are being fooled and forced to replace even the working parts.
3- Why engineers are very much eager to just replace the filters( I know they need to be replaced at specific intervals but at least verify first the actual issue). This is very annoying that they first change the filters before actually looking into the issue. This is very bad practice on their side. And they do so in the name of the company’s standard practice. If that is so, then, believe me, you are looting or cheating your customers.
So, everything above was just a preface. Now coming to my original issue:
When last time the engineer visited my home, just by looking into the machine, he said we need to replace three filters. I told him how can you say that without even checking it. I was expecting him to at least replace those filters with a working one and check whether water is coming up to that filter. Or at least bypass those filters to verify whether we will get the water at the end. He said we are seeing such issues on an everyday basis and by experience, he can say this. I told him maybe the filters are okay but some other parts are defective, to which he said we will have to change the filters first before moving ahead(let me tell you, by this time I already had 3 filters and the pump got replaced by them within a period of 1 year). Not convinced at all by his approach to solving the issue, I asked him not to work on it.
Now, at this point, I gave up my expectations of your company providing me some engineer who can approach the solution right(normal) way. I convinced myself that I will have to discontinue your product considering the maintenance cost( more than 8 k in one year) with such attitude of engineers.
Now comes the self-analysis part.
Warning to general customers: Please don’t do this yourself, otherwise the company may not entertain your further request saying only their engineers are entitled to handle this. I did it because anyhow I had lost all hopes and was mentally ready to put the machine to scrap.
After convincing myself and before putting the machine directly into scrap. I thought why not try my hands directly on this to understand the issue.
In my self-analysis (thanks to YouTube) this is the steps(component-flow-diagram) that I encountered in my machine(these are just the one I looked for specific to my issue, there can be many more):
STEPS / DEVICES:
1-pipe(tap to Pre-filter)
2- Pre-Filter
3- Pipe(Pre-Filter to Inline-Sediment-Filter)
4- Inline-Sediment-Filter
5 Pipe(Inline-Sediment-Filter to Solenoid-Valve)
6- Solenoid-Valve
7- Pipe(Solenoid-Valve to Pump)
8- Pump
9- Pipe(Pump to Inline-Carbon-Filter)
10- Inline-Carbon-Filter
11- Pipe(Inline-Carbon-Filter to TDS-Adjuster)(Also to RO-Membrane-Filter but ignoring this path)
12- TDS-Adjuster
13- Pipe(TDS-Adjuster to UF-Filter)
14- UF-Filter
15 - Pipe(UF-Filter to clean water tank)
Note: I have not mentioned SMPS or path for sink/dirty-out water which starts at step 11 and passing through RO-Membrane.
After analyzing the system step by step, I found that the device was defective at step 6(Solenoid-Valve) itself. It means no further water supply on all further steps." I was expecting your engineers to find this".
After ordering and replacing this part and continuing the analysis, the next defective device was at step 12(TDS-Adjuster). A point to note here is that both step 6(Solenoid Valve) and step 12(TDS adjuster) are NOT FILTERS(which your engineers are eager to replace).
After replacing these two steps I was able to get water supply in clean water.
I don’t want to say that filters are not required to be changed, but PROPER ANALYSIS MUST BE DONE BY YOUR ENGINEERS.
It hugely impacts the confidence of customers in your service. And ignorance on this part impacts badly on the pockets of customers who have to pay a huge amount for the mistakes of your engineers. Having said that, I hope that you take this message in a constructive way and bring your attention to improve this. By the way, I would be more than happy to have an engineer visit my home to re-analyze all the machines with the RIGHT APPROACH.
Also, replace parts at step 6 and 12 with genuine Kent Part( they both combined cost me approx Rs 500 i.e much lesser than replacing three filters)
Hoping for a response from your side.