Nov 09, 2010 02:55 PM
26877 Views
I bought Whirlpool AC instead of Samsung with their latest Inverter technology by considering the service support Whirlpool has in Kerala. But it was the worst experience I ever had.I bought the AC 6 months back and it brake down after 4 months.
First I made a compliant to the local service number. Since there was no response I registered compliant in customer support number listed in the web site.
After several promise to visit, finally one guy came and find out that the compressor is failed, said may be capacitor failed. And said it needs to be replaced.
Then after two days another guy came with a capacitor and checked and said not fixed, may be the capacitor he bring might also is broke.(Bravo! And I clapped)
After some day someone came and said it is not capacitor problem it is compressor problem it needs to be fixed. So first they need to take it to there service center and examine it.
After several compliant through phone some body came and took the compressor. Then no response for a while and said the compressor will be replace with in 10 days.
After 10 day they said the compressor they ordered is a wrong model, so they need another 10 day to order the correct model
After many phone calls finally they said the compressor is out of stock, it should be manufactured from china and shipped to me.(They go into details like from china to pune, then from there to tvm via land, I was like, oh! now this is international thingy!)
Again registered several compliments and several phone calls answer “Sorry product not available”
After two months I was planning to go for consumer compliant, before that I registered a compliant in their corporate site. Then for the first time I got a call from them saying that they got mail and they will be sending a compressor from Chennai.( okey! back to national thingy!)
Finally today(after 2+ months) somebody came and fit a compressor, but without filling the gas, gas tomorrow(how organized! tears in my eyes).
Lessons learned:
For whirlpool I felt like there a 3 separate companies working independently
1) Local office and support:
They are helpless, if the product is available they do the support. Service engineer can do the installation, gas filling, leak fix and capacitor change. Nothing more. But at least they do their job.
2) National customer support:
This company consist for many phone support staff, they do following
1) Register a compliant
2) When call and ask for status, they say will be contacting in 1 hr, and no body calls back
3) Close the compliant after 2 weeks. Then I have to register a new compliant.
4) There is no response to the email complaints.
I would say they are doing Comfort service not customer service, they are trained to attend angry customer calls and say strange replays. They try maximum to calm you down.
I would suggest putting some background music that changes according to the customer response will improve the comfort service.
3) Corporate:
They want things in order, when you register compliant, they will forward it and go back to sleep.
The worst was the regional manger from Cochin:
He attended my call once and said everything will be fixed very soon. Again I called after 1 week and said with in 5 day he will arrange a replacement. And then he blocks my mobile number. I used another phone to ask for status and later I just give up on him.
When I asked why the customer support is closing my compliant, he said, they do have a policy to close every compliant with in two weeks or else it will be escalated. So they will just close the compliant without prior notice, which is their policy.
And that was the quote of the day, and I did not have anything else to say to a manager who supports this policy.(And I realize that FIAT-TATA service is high quality comparing this, you lost number one position in my worst service list)
Advice to future whirlpool customers:
1) Think again.
2) If you are one of those unlucky customer like me who have a failed product, just wait 1 week and go for consumer compliant. So that you can account for mental agony.
3) Go for Yoga classes. The Yoga classes did a great job to control my anger these 2 months.
