[Resolved]  IFB Washing Machine — SERVICE PERSONNEL NOT RESPONDING

Address:

Tamil Nadu

11/01/2012
I am B Babu Rajendran from Coimbatore

We have purchased an IFB DIGITAL 5.5 FRONT LOADING TYPE washing machine last year. The particular machine has a 4 year warranty also. Since the day of purchase we are not very comfortable with the customer care.

The commissioning person himself came only after five working days after the day of purchase. Within a usage period of five months, there was a noise coming in the machine. After complaining about the same to customer care,a service personnel arrived VERY PROMPTLY - WITH A COMFORTABLE INTERVAL OF FIVE DAYS. Later during the course of servicing, it was informed by the service person, that the motor has to be replaced and that has to be ordered from the head office or so. There was no response from the servicing team for more than two weeks and when inquired about the status of our complaint, it was informed that, the previous complaint was lapsed and we had to lodge a new complaint - which again took a week or so for the same process. After about 50 calendar days, the particular motor was brought and fixed in our machine and it was in operation.

During the fag end of last year, on 26/12/2011, the door of the machine got struck up and did not open. Assuming that there was some system error, we called the customer care on 27/12/2011 and lodged a complaint - also mentioned that our clothes were struck inside the machine. The complaint number is 7933545 dt 27/12/2011. Similar to the previous complaint last year, there was a VERY PROMPT SERVICE. One servicing personnel ( Mr Vignesh ) arrived on 29/12/2011 giving a three days cushioning time - leaving us in a position without proper dresses to wear.( We are family consisting of four adults( including two senior citizens), one child doing her school final and one infant. We leave it to your extreme imagination what will be our situation when some of our daily wear dresses are in a position not to even reach.)

The service person informed that there was a damage in the door knob lever, and that it was broken and it has to be replaced. He left the door opened and told that within a day the spare will be replaced for which even we were ready to pay - even if the machine was under warranty. But even after three to four days, there was no communication from the servicing team. Later we approached the dealer from whom we had purchased the washing machine M/s Bharat Electronic Appliances, Coimbatore on 03/01/2012 There, we were guided by the Boss of the place, who took real interest - since we are a long time regular customer for them - in solving our problem by immediately calling the Servicing Department personnel Mr Nandagopal, who in turn promised that our complaint will be taken care on the next day itself, and we can call him if there was any problem - which was very generous indeed.

Days come and go and every time we call the customer care, we are informed that a serivce person will be visiting on the same day, but no one will turn up. With a bit of hesitation when we call Mr Nandagopal ( since he is a senoir personnel ) for help, either he will be in a meeting or we may not reach him, we will be informed that, he will call us back - but that never happened.

Inspite of our daily telephonic followups we are yet to get our machine serviced till date.

Luckily, today we spoke to Mr Nandagopal at a late hour for which again he has promised taht our machine will be taken care of tomorrow !?!

Please advice us for the following few doubts which generally arise to any household in common.

1. Should we sacrifice our daily routine waiting for the servicing person ( whether he will come or not)
2. Should we sacrifice or forget the money spent on the FULLY AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINE (say approximately Rs 25000/-) and do our daily washing by hand.
3. Should we go for a spare machine always as this takes a loooooong time for servicing every time.
4. Should we go for a rented machine whenever we have a breakdown - if so please provide us the address for the rental service provider.

WITH SINCERE PAINFUL REGRETS,

B BABU RAJENDRAN
58 A/1 SRINAGAR
B R PURAM PO
COIMBATORE 641004