I want to share my ‘experience’ of trying to go for Prestige hob and chimney. I visited one of their Kitchen Boutiques (the one in J.P Nagar 24th Main) in April. To be frank, I was pretty impressed by the products. They looked decent and the salesperson was successful in making me believe that being an Indian company, the after sales service will be better compared to foreign companies.. (Little did I then realize that even their before-sales service is pathetic)..
However, I placed order for glass hob (about Rs.7700) and 60 cm Stainless Steel chimney (about Rs.11450) and paid the amount in full. They opened the boxes, showed me the items and said I just need to call them up 3-4 days before, to have the installation done. They also gave the template for cutting the granite. I was so pleased by the experience that day that I recommended this shop and their products to some of my friends…
Wood work was happening in my apartment and when this over, I thought of getting the hob and chimney installed.. Unaware of the impending trauma, I called up Prestige to ask for an installation after 3 days.. When I asked the person, he replied saying that they don’t have stock and that I need to wait.. I told him that I had already paid for it and that they had set aside the piece for me. After insisting, he finally agreed that he had given it to someone else.. !!!!
That evening, I went to their shop and demanded an explanation. He then said he would arrange the item to be available by the coming Wednesday and would install it the same day. When I called him up and reminded him on Tuesday, he again repeated the commitment. However, on Wednesday when I called him, he repeated the same old reason – product not in stock, he doesn’t know when the item is gonna come…
Fed up with this guy, I called up the Territory Sales Manager – Mr. Ravindra (Ph: 9741301702) to escalate. I must say that this guy Ravindra has mastered the art of cheating and he assumes that the customers are all fools.. Can you believe that he mentioned the Gujjar agitation as the reason for the non-availability of stock? He assumes that the customers are nincompoops who will believe that an indefinite delay in their products can be caused by a local and not-that-disruptive agitation in the North, when their factory is in Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
I then decided to call up their main guy – Mr. K.G.George, General manager (Ph: 22217438, 22217439, 222990540), who believes that he is doing a great favour by picking up the call from his customers. He sounds rude, arrogant and indifferent. He however agreed to call me back and get back to me with the status that evening. You would have probably deduced by now that he did not call me back, but also never picked up when I tried to call him as well.. by then I realized there is no point in pursuing and cancelled my order and went on to buy Faber.
Long story short, this Prestige company is very unprofessional to deal with and they believe that customers exist for serving their company… Little do they know that many other quality international players like Faber, Gilma are in the market, who are going to give these guys a run for their money..
And the underlining statement is that the folks at different levels of that company are CHEATS, who don’t value their commitment, who never think it is necessary to honour their words and treat customer like s. I would advise everyone with some sense of pride to stay away from these pathetic CHEATERS..