LG closes Bharuch service center

Ankleshwar and Bharuch channels are enraged with LG India’s decision of
shutting down the service center at Bharuch for its IT products. Un-der the
present scenario, there is a toll number (9898010990) provided by LG for the
entire Va-dodara district (mainly from Va-pi to Disa). The company has now app-ointed
In-finity Ser-vices in Va-dodara, which is supposed to be an exclusive service
provider for its IT products.

"Presen-tly, we call up on the toll num-ber and the service person comes
from Vadodara. They only come when there are more than one replacements or
repairs to be done. Earlier when it was at Bha-ruch, it was an advantage for the
channel part-ners. LG was the first one to have its service cen-ter for the
entire range of IT products. The center was also providing service to its
consumer electronic goods," pointed out Mayank Mehta, Partner, Sunshine
Computers and an active mem-ber of Ankleshwar and Bharuch Information Technology
Association (ABITA).

However, when contacted, Narayan Bhimbre, LG’s Service-in-Charge of Ahmeda-bad,
denied the same. He said, "The pro-cedure has been changed, as now, there
is a toll number given to partners which is taken care of by the Vadodara
service center. But the Bharuch service center is still active as channel
partners can still go and give their IT products for repair or replacement. The
products are also replaced to the partners within 12 hours from Vadodara
therefore, not causing a problem."

On the other ha-nd, chan-nel part-ners co-mpletely disagreed with Bhi-mbre.
"The ser-vice center at Bharuch is not wor-king and we have been told to
send our products to Vadodara. Therefore this is a complete lie on the part of
the vendor," clari-fied Mehta.

LG was among the few vendors providing service for its entire range at
Bharuch, including other vendors like Wipro. Samsung was only providing onsite
warranty for its monitors. Now ABITA is also planning to intervene. Said Manish
Shroff, President, ABITA, "It’s been a month since we have been talking
to LG representatives at Ahmedabad. We want to work out a solution as soon as
possible."

Nancy Sudheer

Mumbai