Mar 20, 2010 12:53 PM
12719 Views
What do you do when poor customer service affects your wife so much so that she loses sleep, and you need to spend a few hours each day pacifying her? You make sure that others get a chance to learn from your horrendous experience. So here goes …
Lets start with IFB’s vision statement which as per their website is as follows:
IFB will be synonymous with Innovation & Technology in its chosen fields of business activities.IFB will excel in Quality & Services to be in consonance with Global Standards.
I can assure you that on point 1 above – I could not agree more with IFB. The innovation is this: you can buy IFB products at very competitive rates. Its just that you will need to be prepared to spend in excess of Rs 3000 each year maintaining it! (I am sure the sales rep would not have told you about that bit). The parts are designed to fail at regular intervals, and since the electronic parts don’t come cheap, you need to pay through your nose to keep your product working.
On point 2, I can speak from experience that its a bunch of baloney. Don’t be fooled by it. The guiding customer service principles in IFB seems to be the following:
a. Lie indiscriminately to the customer. Treat them like dirt.
b. Give them multiple telephone numbers and ask them to speak to countless IFB reps – so that you can keep them busy – like rats in a huge maze.
c. Never ever take ownership of a customer’s issue/ complaint. By extension of this principle, never ever call back a customer or let them know what is going on. (Even if the customer calls back 50 times a day).
After a history of poor customer service experience with IFB, I decided I could not remain silent after the latest fiasco – details below.
12th March 2010: My 3 year old Elena 5 KG Washing Mahine stops working again (2nd time this year). Complaint number 4249324 logged with IFB’s customer service rep (call was made to 1860-425-5678)
12th March 2010: Was promised that the technician would come home in 24 hours and fix the problem
13th March 2010: Technician calls and confirms the address. He requests us to wait till 15th or 16th.
15th March 2010: No news from anyone attached to IFB
16th March 2010: No news from anyone attached to IFB. When we chased this with IFB we were informed that 16th was a holiday due to new year celebrations in the neighboring states (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh)
17th March 2010: No news from anyone attached to IFB. As usual, we chased several times with IFB, we were now given the chennai franchisee’s number and the regional franchisee manager’s cellphone number. (Yes, you guessed it – IFB Customer Service Policy mandates that the customer be given at least 5-6 different telephone numbers, so that they can beg more people associated with IFB for mercy!).
We were promised by the franchisee manager that the technician would be at our doorstep at 3:00 PM.
3:00 PM came and went but no sign of the technician. We called and spoke to the franchisee manager again. The manager told us the technician was held up in another home. I lost my cool at hearing that and asked why a false commitment was given to me. (I was on Loss of Pay leave that day). The manager then changes track and tells me to speak to the technician who is now sitting right next to her! The technician promises to come in 20 minutes. I wait till 11:00 PM and go to bed.
18th March 2010: No response from IFB. Unable to reach IFB reps in Chennai. They now disconnect calls from me indiscriminately.
19th March 2010: No response from IFB. Call them in the morning. IFB regional head is called, we are assured that the complaint will be resolved in 24 hours.They promise that someone will come along before the day is over. When no body comes till 3:00 PM, I call them back. They conference in the technician who starts lying to IFB rep about how he came home and was told that there was no problem with the washing machine. When the technician is informed that the customer is on the line, the technician caught unawares hangs up.
20th March 2010: No response from IFB. Speak to the IFB Customer Support people for the 100th time. I already know their answer by heart now. They will send an escalation mail! Calls to the vadapalani office are unanswered, they don’t pick calls from us anymore. So we play a trick on them, we call IFB Customer Support and have them conference us in. Spoke to the technician and he promises to come by 12:00 PM. A promise which was of course broken. What else do you expect from IFB? I have learnt to expect only consistently poor customer service that for the first time in my life is affecting my wife and me and creating unwelcome difficulty in managing our household chores.
