In fact, some of them are rather excellent.
In today’s mass-fabrication-and-not-enough-quality-testing world, most manufacturers accept that out of every thousand products pieces, a few will bomb, choke and die. And rather than eliminating these broken products at their assembly line, they still ship them, and expect the consumer to report to them that these have gone bad. They have set up extensive networks and customer care offices to take care of exactly this. And apparently, it is cheaper this way, for them.
So, I’m one of the heavy buyers of said products, and run aground when they give up on me. So far, I’ve had it with Nokia and Intel (and UMAX, but don’t even get me started on that one)… One was horrible, and the other just bearable, but then comes APC, the leading manufacturers of UPS and such stuff…
Well, my UPS started acting up, and would not do it’s job, which isn’t so good for the PC. So I decided to report it to APC, since they very generously had given me a two year warranty. First off, I get their local number from the internet. And call a certain Mr. Dominique. He was very kind and helpful, and redirected me to their Bangaluru call centre, which had a toll free number.
I called them up. The customer support executive there had a very hard to understand accent, but that’s ok, I can work with that. He did his thing, and verified the product. Except, from his records, it was out of warranty. So I explained to him that I had a bill with the purchase date that was less than two years old. He agreed to log the call, and asked me to fax the bill.
Which I did not, since I really had no time. Then one fine day, after about two, actually, APC calls me up, asking me if I was available that day for the UPS check-up. I asked them to come the following day, and one chap from their service partner in Goregaon did indeed appear at the door step.
He thoroughly checked the UPS, the battery and decided (with very little intervention from me) that the battery was faulty. And here’s the best part: He had got a spare with himself, replaced mine, and resolved the issue.
For free.
(Yes, I know it was the warranty. But still. Some others don’t. Or won’t.)
Wonderful!
Now if only every other company decides to work like them, the world would head a tad towards Utopia.
================
Disclaimer: I do not hold any association with APC, except that of a happy consumer.
