Apr 30, 2013 04:08 PM
28030 Views
I think iam one of those millions of unhappy customers of Samsung which now realized finally is because of the POOR Service by their service engineering agency at Hyderabad. I lodged the complaint on 17th December'2012 that my Refrigerator, which was bought in the month July’2012, was not working. The problem was “Not getting cooling but the lights inside the fridge are ON as usual". Complaint was sent to Hyderabad Service center.
On 18th Dec'13 we got a call from one of the engineers named Mr.Sriram who came next day to check and he said PCB board has gone faulty and needs to be replaced. We accepted for that and next day the same engineer brought the NEW PCB BOA RD :-), replaced and tried, cooling was still not coming so, he ruled out the possibility of PCB board failure and said that it’s Compressor that has failed and needs to be replaced.
The problem started to worsen from here.
When we were told that Compressor has gone faulty, we were disappointed. It’s a refrigerator which has 10 year warranty on the compressor and the same has gone faulty within 5 months of purchase.. That was weird. Its always believed that Compressor is the Heart of refrigerator and if it is once repaired/replaced how would I be using it for 10 years .. So, I told the engineer and service team that iam not accepting for a repair/replace of compressor in such a short span of its purchase. Instead, I want the fridge to be replaced. The engineer said that what you r talking makes sense but it’s a call that my higher-ups should take and he escalated.
The management of service team called and after hearing my plea and reasoning said they cannot take a call but they will escalate to Samsung Company. (From that day I had been calling them for the status of complaint everyday but they kept saying they have escalated to Head office and they are waiting to hear from them. Atlast after 7 days (26th Dec’12) they called us and said one of the company's direct engineer has come and he needs to check. But, at that time we were not at home and were in a different place on a personal emergency. (My wife picked the call and asked them to call us after two to three days).
I called back on 31st Jan’13 to tell that I was available so they can come and check, one of the service engineers team/agency head answered my call and said he will send the engineer that day. However, no one has come that day and after 3 days (On 3rd Jan’13) I called again to check the status. This time I was told that my complaint was closed on 27th Dec’12 itself. The reason was Customer Not Available. I just got fed up because I was in an impression that there is a complaint on which Samsung’s team is working and probably its getting delayed because of the Holiday Season (Christmas and New Year). But, my complaint was closed without my knowledge and even on 31st when I spoke they did not inform me. That was my first issue.
I again called cust service to complain.I told what I was going through. They promised a call back the same day, which they missed.. I called them again the next day and then I had to tell the problem from the beginning and they offered me a call back. This time luckily I got the call back and I explained the problem again to the person (Lead) he then escalated the issue to his higher up and the next day I got a call from their Area Sales Manager. He heard my whole story again and said he will get back with the needful done in 2 to 3 days.I waited and called back, then was told that my complaint will now be escalated to VOC desk..that is meant to be the highest level escalating department. VOC desk people called and I had to tell my story to them… they first made an attempt to address the problem of Service Desk closing the complaint without my knowledge..(Which was good) they took the service team head (Hyd) into conference call and made me to speak and clarify. Initially the service head said that he informed my wife that they are closing complaint which my wife disagreed then he said they closed the complaint because of Ageing of the complaint… Huuuuu.. That made us feel like we and our complaint were ill-treated. Anyway, I just said let’s not worry about that anymore but look for the resolution to my actual complaint.
Let me remind you that diagnose to my complaint was “Compressor gone faulty” and it was 20 days that I complained and had no fridge at home. I did also tell to area sales manager, VOC desk and few others whenever on call that I have a 2 year old daughter at home and without fridge it is difficult.
Eventually I had to buy an alternate fridge when it was about 25 days to get the living going which costed me Rs.8000.
Okay, back to the flow . So VOC desk now assured to get back after they take my case to their higher-ups. Funny thing is their policy says they cannot give SLA for the call back but they will call back ASAP.It took almost 5 days for them to get their Manager talk to me and listen to me again. He then said he will call back next day. He did not but he made his subordinate to call me and tell that they cannot replace Refrigerator and I have to get the compressor replaced. That’s the final decision that their management has taken after having a round table conference about my case.
It was more than a month by then. I was also firm in saying that Iam not accepting the solution given. I asked them that I won’t be happy using the repaired fridge so company can take it back at whatever depreciation cost. Even if they take back for peanuts is also fine with me. But I want that product to be removed from my house. For this again the agent who spoke to me said he will escalate this issue and check for the possible situation.
After almost two months, Samsung people sent an email that they need to get a confirmation that they can replace the compressor otherwise they will wait for next 7 days and will close my complaint. I replied back and said they can go ahead and do whatever they want to and I mentioned that I will however be selling that fridge off after they repair and this time will buy a better company fridge.
They finally sent their service engineer from the same service agency in Hyd on 21st Feb’13. The guy was different this time. This time it was Mr.Satyanarayana. He visited with a new compressor but thought either there are multiple problems with the refrigerator or the initial diagnose needs to be redone. He said he will come back the next day with required tools. He came in next day morning with a new PCB board and a new Compressor. When he checked with the new PCB board My fridge started working. That means Compressor has not gone faulty at all.The engineer (Mr.Sriram) who visited initially did not diagnosed the problem correctly.
This was funny and all because of his ignorance I had to struggle for over two months (Dec 17th to Feb 24th) wasted a lot of time.. Wasted money by buying alternate refrigerator…lot of labour and time wasted. I was pissed off with the service engineers and teams fault. I had been the victim Even if iam selling back the alternate fridge that I bought a month ago, iam not getting 5K.. atleast a 3k is lost their. I wanted someone to take the blame and compensate and justify the hardship I went through because of lack of knowledge of their service engineers. We prefer to buy from brands like Samsung, Only because we believe that we get a better service than the local providers. But their service is worst than the local assembled guys. POOR SERVICE.
