Monday, June 22, 2009

LG Customer Care-less!

Here is the mail that I sent to Mr. Santosh Das, Head of Customer Care, LG Electronics India for not carrying out repairs on my LG washing machine. Within 8 hours, the machine was repaired and several calls followed about quality of repair. This was after a week of not   showing up!

I am not sure if they are really serious about service. Read on, it might give you ideas...

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Dear Santosh,

I understand that you head the customer service at LG India. I must congratulate you and your brilliant team for providing timely and  quality service to clients.

I have a washing machine out of warranty and I called CS in Hyderabad pretty late in the night. They recognized me and took my complaint,  however as the CSA probably did not understand the product well, I had  to explain a simple complaint (broken front door hinge of the front   loading washing machine) 10 times, with washing machine model number. Kudos to your team that they finally got it right!

Thanks that the engineer turned up, and without calling, but isn't that the right way? I am sure they have been trained to not disturb  their clients and land up at their places without calling. The  engineer was well prepared to see "what was wrong with which  equipment?" He also offered to replace the part the next day.

I think as a courtesy, he or any one else in the service center did not disturb me for many days after the visit. Think they forgot about  the complaint -- sometimes humans do forget, don't they? So, I thought  I will remind them that a part needs replacement. They also sometime   forget to tell clients about the status.... human beings!

I called the omnipresent call center. They were very helpful in not letting me know the status as they usually dont have a status --  convenient for them I suppose! They were very helpful in pushing their  problem to the service center, also forthcoming in giving out service center head's mobile number. I also believe that the number is changed  (Anjaneyulu 09703217681) as he is not picking it up for quite some  time -- probably he is a busy man and customer call is not a priority  for him.

Today, I called up the service center to check the status, they replied that they have no clue as the part is not there and they will  not forward the call to the supervisor. I like this attitude of   service people -- clear and concise -- no ambiguities! Atleast he said that he has no clue about service delivery date.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you that my 1.5 year's son's clothes and our small family's clothes are piling up and not been washed for more than  a week. I think I will take leave from office for a day and wash all  clothes.

I am writing to you so that you can send your service team to my home tomorrow to wash all clothes manually. It will be a great help. I  think your team is good at washing clothes as they have demonstrated  limited servicing abilities. Thanks in advance for sending your team,  I will send you washing session's pictures tomorrow - you might want to include them in your newsletter telling how far you guys go to  service a client!

Looking forward to your team's visit to my home to wash all clothes.

And, if you really think it is possible replace a part, I am pretty sure it will be impossible to backtrack my complaint number from the  limited information on this mail, so here it it is S9C 6100 5885.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

7 Mantras for Profitable Rural Mobile Applications in India

1. Literacy: Don't make me read anything except numbers. Think voice and human interfaces.
2. Trust: Payment to humans. Don't try self / machine payments.
3. Lock-in: Ask for payments only when needed - don't lock me in, and I don't understand plans.
4. Customize: Services or products must solve my specific problem.
5. Exclusive: The information must not be available thru other means: word of mouth, media...
6. Timely: Product/Services/Information must be available when needed, shut off when not needed.
7. Self-service: Self service apps must be designed & usability tested after ethno research.