I bought a symphony air cooler last year from Croma in Hyderabad. The very next day, the water pump stopped working. It was peak summer and sun was really beating down Hyderabad. I contacted the support person for Hyderabad region. He in turn gave some more contacts. Obviously things did not work out as fast as expected. I was really pissed off at that time. I went to Croma and complained. That is when things started to move forward and the very next day it was repaired. I let this incident go’cause it is possible to have manufacturing defects and since Croma were taking responsibility, I was okay.
Turn the clock to present day. Hyderabad is again heating up and time to change the pad. The cooler pads need to be changed every year for the cooler to be effective. If you come to think of it, it is such a great business model if handled well. You sell the product once and every year, we have to pay the company for maintenance. But you will be surprised to find how hard Symphony makes it to buy pads from Symphony. I sometimes think they work really hard to ensure that customers are not happy.
Repeated calls to service in Hyderabad fell to deaf years. Everyday there is an excuse on why they will come another day for service. Believe me, the air cooler is a piece of junk if the pads are not changed. And instead of making such maintenance easy for customers, I think folks in symphony just forget about their customers after they sell their product. The service people even have the gumption to say that I can complain to anybody if I want. Obviously the rot seems to be right in the top.
The product itself is decent. But whats the use if it becomes useless after a year. You would use it for atmost 3 months a year and if this is the shelf life, why go for it. I do not have experience with other models. So I cannot comment on them. But if you know what to avoid, it is better. Isn’t it.