LG's slow after-sales service irks Satara dealers

LG has been at the receiving end of
several service-related complaints voiced by dealers based out of the
Satara region of Maharashtra. The major concern for dealers has been
that it takes a really long time for the servicing of certain
products, added to which is the effort that goes on behind the entire
process including repeated follow up calls and other costs which
ultimately they themselves have to bear.

Dealer speak

According to Parag Sevekari of
Computron Systems, the Satara service center is practically redundant
having experienced the quality of service firsthand, he empathizes
with others, “I gave my LCD monitor for service but after some
time, the service center shut down following which they did not
return my monitor. When I contacted them, they said that they don't
have it with them and that they don't know if it has been shifted to
the center in Kolhapur. It has been four years now and I still have
not got it back. In another case with a customer, I sent his CRT
monitor to their service center in Kolhapur but did not get it back.
I had to finally settle with the customer by replacing it with an LCD
monitor the cost of which I had to bear. I even have the receipt as
proof of this case.” Other dealers like Softech and Microlink have
also had issues with LG in the past and admit to the same. “Yes
there are issues we are facing with regards to LG's service,” says
Vivek Shinde of Microlink. Parag Marulkar of Softech adds,
“Specifically we have faced problems with regards to the service
delivery for LG products like LCD monitors and DVD writers.”

While the company claims to be
committed to prompt service as declared on their corporate website,
the ground realities seem to be quite the opposite. “They claim to
provide on-site service support however we have to often bear the
cost of not only traveling to the customer site to pick up the
product but also that of sending it to their service centers in
either Kolhapur or Pune and getting it back to their doorstep just
because of the lack of proper service in Satara,” laments
Raghvendra Harishchandra Gode of PC Tech. Agrees Girish Kulkarni of
Midas Touch, a system integrator, “I often have to send products
like LCD monitors and DVD writers to other service centers in Pune
and Kolhapur for servicing because the center here cannot do it on
time despite repeated follow up attempts in the past.”

Vendor response

So what does LG have to say in response
to this? When the issue was first raised with R Manikandan,

Marketing Head-Business Solutions, LG
Electronics India, he said that he was not aware of it and promised
to check back with his service team in Satara. Later, he reverted
with the following response “I have intimated the service team in
Satara about this and I have been informed that as on date, there are
no long pending cases of service complaints. However, I have asked
the team to give me a report about the handling of service cases for
the last six months to see if there has been a trend of service
delays as claimed by certain dealers. I will check the turnaround
time (TAT) as a parameter and have also asked the center concerned to
give me an update on the infrastructure available to them for
servicing customer complaints. It is also possible that there is a
perception among local dealers that LG does not provide quality
service and if so, I would like to change that by engaging them with
the right people so that they get the right perspective.”

Finally, we tried to get a response
from the local as well as national service center regarding the said
issue, however this was to no avail as none of the contact numbers
listed were answered despite several attempts. It remains to be seen
what facts the report required by LG would throw up however it does
seem that raising the flag on this issue has begun to make an impact.
We had contacted LG on Friday for comment and one of the partners we
had interviewed was visited by an LG employee asking for the
necessary documents required to settle all service backlog with the
concerned partner. Parag Sevekari has this to say “On Saturday that
is the 30th of January, a person from LG came to ask for the
documents relating to pending service issues in order to settle the
same with me. I believe talking about this had made a difference
after all. Thank you for voicing our concerns.”