Service is the key

"We've collected the most common service complaints, and
every one of them is rooted in lack of respect for the customer."

This is an observation by Leonard Berry, Director-Center for
Retailing Studies, Texas A&M University, which I came across while surfing
the net one day. Now what struck me most about the quote was how it is true, not
only about retail, but any vertical, any industry. Organizations are so busy in
selling products and meeting targets, topline and bottomline, that they have
forgotten the fact that every person they sell something to needs some service.
But service is a concept that just does not seem to have taken off in our
country. And that is true for the IT industry also. Every IT Panchayat that I
have attended, the issue of lack of after-sales service has been topmost on the
minds of channel partners.

According to partnersm vendors are in a rush to dispose their
products and forget that the end customer requires some support and after-sales
service also. The continued disinterest of most vendors in the area of providing
support to partners and end-customers is what makes the partners red faced in
front of their customer. While for a vendor, one dissatisfied consumer might not
be a big thing, but the loss of face value for a partner is a big thing as it
hurts their business.

And that is precisely the reason why channel partners are
getting together and imposing bans on vendors. Confed-ITA has had a run in with
Lenovo, Samsung recently had to hold a reseller meet in Chennai to pacify
agitated resellers, Panipat Association has recently slapped a ban on billing
for APC since the vendor is not doing anything for after-sales support, and this
week channel partners from Shimla are complaining about the lack of support from
HP.

Look closely, these are some of the biggest names in the IT
channel fraternity, and they are ignoring the demands that the channel is
making. A demand that they are making on behalf on the end-customer, ie the
people who spend hard-earned money on buying products from a well-known brand in
the hope that they will get service if and when any problem happens. These sales
are the ones that are writing the new growth stories in India, and really,
after-sales service is a mandatory thing that consumer's should be entitled
to.

But sadly that is not the case. After-sales service is a concept
that is yet to take off in India. Every industry that has to thrive has to make
sure that its patrons are satisfied. Each satisfied customer means a chance for
recurring business or even new business based on word of mouth publicity. On the
other handm unhappy customer base means bad publicity and probably more losses
that you can counter.

In this age of cutting

edge competition, bad publicity, especially on after-sales service is something
that few companies can afford.

Don't you agree?

Shivangi Yadav

shivangiy@cybermedia.co.in