Eureka Forbes customer feedback.

 

Here’s another one and the only one where I possibly went wrong in the end and tendered an apology.

I purchased a water purifier system(WPS) sometime in January directly from the Eureka Forbes(EF) office in KR Puram. Though there are lot of  WPS companies available, yet, I chose EF simply because of the number of its service centers in India and the brand name. The team lead Satheesh PM(name unchanged) promised me a free re-installation anywhere in Bangalore within a period of 3 months. This was my pre-requisite for buying the WPS. My experience with customer service from people over the past few months has/had been dismal so I thought of getting it hand-written on the purchase invoice.

So, when my new apartment was almost ready, I called up Satheesh and politely asked him for a free re-installation. He informed me that I should be calling him a day before I shifted. So when the day arrived, I called him up. However, even after twenty odd tries wherein the phone rang, I received no response. The next day, I received a message saying he was out of station. I was fine with it and since it was already weekend, I thought it would be best to call him on Monday. On Monday, I called him again and this time he picked up the phone and noted the new and old address. Also, he seemed to remember his promise of a free reinstallation and informed me that the technician would be notified and gave me the number of Narayanamoorthy(NM) who could be contacted to get the details of the technician. I called up NM the following morning and enquired about when the technician would be arriving. He gave me the date and time and then informed me that it would NOT be a free service that Satheesh promised but a paid one. I argued that Satheesh had promised me a free-reinstallation and that I had the written proof for the same.

Now Mr NM informed me that he had spoken with Satheesh who said that he had never promised any customer and possibly the technician(guy who installs) might have written that on the invoice. So, I called up Satheesh again but could not reach him(Phone rang but he doesn’t pick up). By this time, I was already pissed off and so called up Mr NM and asked him on who should be contacted for escalation. Mr NM directed me to Mr. Ali who also had a similar line of NO-FREE reinstallation. I blasted him about Satheesh’s broken promise, EF’s service and threatened to create a ruckus and report in the internet if they made me come to their office. I believed this had no impact on them.

So, I sent an SMS to Satheesh informing him that I would escalate the issue to his higher superiors and that I had a written proof and would report in the internet about EF’s failed promise. Thereafter, Satheesh replied stating he was in a conference somewhere out of station and that he would look to ensure that a free reinstallation is done.

The SMS had worked and the next day, the technician was there at my old residence to shift the WPS. I had also asked for a clamp stand for the purifier’s wall mounting and of course, I was ready to pay the price. Since I was caught up with some other work, I directed the technician to my residence and became busy. After about an hour, when I returned home, I was informed that the base of the WPS had a crack and that the technician had left in a hurry after installing the wall mount without testing if it was working fine. By this time, I was furious and sent an SMS to Satheesh who replied stating that Mr. Raju, the service manager should be contacted.

Raju was quick to act on the request and I could hear him shout at his technician over the phone on the second line. After several calls and in about 2 hours, the technician was back and he cooled me off with a single line. “The WPS was full when I emptied the contents at your old address. If there is leakage now, then its my problem and if there is no leakage, then it was already in that condition”. That made sense and I waited for him to pour water on the empty WPS. And as he said, there was no leakage. It appears that Protec+(the WPS) has a hollow space between the actual system and the base. So, even though the base had cracked(God knows when?), it hadn’t leaked.

Immediately, on realizing my fault, I apologized to the technician who bore the brunt of his manager’s wrath and to his manager Mr. Raju himself who had done the work with great sense of customer support.

The entire episode ended with mixed feelings for me.

Raju did a great job but Satheesh-the architect of the chaos failed me repeatedly. The technician was just and deserved a pat for his thought.