Warranty: Marketing tool or supporting rule?

Baroda : Vendors use warranty policies as a marketing tool and not as
a supporting rule-this summed up the general discontentment that partners in
Baroda felt when it came to doing the IT business. Almost all the partners who
participated in The DQ Week IT Panchayat that was organized in the city on Nov
20, 2008 were very vocal about how vendors promised customers exemplary
post-sales support-at times even lifetime warranty-but failed to deliver the
same.

On the panel were Abhinav Buch, Branch Manager, Redington India; Manish Patel
of Neoteric Infomatique; Rinkesh Patel, Branch Manager, Rashi Peripherals and
Sajid Surati, Branch Manager, Ingram Micro India. Representing the Baroda
Information Technology Association (BITA) was Nilesh Joshi, VP, BITA, while
Paurav Choksi, Proprietor, Maa Trading was the common voice of the partners.
Vinita Bhatia, Executive Editor, DQ Channels moderated the discussion.

Flagging the discussion, Hitesh Patni, President, BITA claimed that the
biggest problem facing the channel in Baroda was that of warranty. Talking about
one particular incident he noted, "A partner faced a problem with an Asus
product and even a year and a half after sending the product for warranty, the
case has not been resolved. This is a long turnaround time for a single issue
and partners can't be expected to be involved in resolving only warranty-related
problems."

To this, Buch explained that some vendors have their own service centers and
in such instances distributors don't have any control on their support policies.
Surati also added that most vendors currently have toll free numbers where
partners can log complaints and will get instant response about it.

But many partners then complained that typically the quality of support
offered at these call centers was unsatisfactory. Nikhil Modi of Infotech Kursor
said, "Once I had to call constantly for three days to get my complaint
registered. Surely I can't be expected to stop doing business and simply devote
my time in lodging complaints. Can I?"

Talking about another aspect of warranty problems, partners claimed that
sometimes when a product was sent in for support, then its parts were not
available. To compound this problem, vendors don't even give a deadline by which
time the spare parts will be made available. "We are unable to give the
customer any proper feedback about the time frame when his problem will be
resolved and end up having a disgruntled customer on hand and also the risk of
losing him due to the poor support offered by vendors," said Patni.

Neha Shah of Lantech Technologies pointed out that when the margins earned by
partners for most products are so low, it is not viable for them to spend more
just to maintain customer loyalty. "Most of the time, we give the customer
a replacement from our own stock, but this means that our capital is
affected," she added.

Offering a suggestion to resolve these issues, Bhavik Gajiwala of Anju
Corporation said, "Distributors should dedicate one person in every branch
to solve these kinds of warranty-related problems. This person can also be the
single point of contact on whom we can rely to convey feedback to vendors."

But Buch said that distributor representatives in all regions always forward
channel feedback to the vendors and there is often a positive outcome of the
same. He then explained that the role of a distributor is limited when it comes
to the implementation of vendor support policies.

Partners also pointed that the entire process for availing warranty should be
simplified. "Some vendors ask us to provide invoice bills when a product
needs to be repaired or replaced, even though the product could have been sold
three years ago and is still under warranty. Since we purchase products in bulk,
it is not possible for us to find a single bill easily," Jignesh Patel of
Upvan Enterprises complained.

Partners advised that distributors and vendors should automate the process so
that if the product ID is fed into the system, then all the details of the
warranty policy is furnished and the partner need not furnish any proof of
purchase. This is especially crucial because a dealer might have bought a
product from a reseller who might have purchased it from a sub-distributor or a
disty. In such a case, culling out the bill is a very exhaustive process.

Lastly, the partners claimed that there was an urgent need for vendors to
organize technical workshops and not mere sales meets, on a regular basis.
Nilesh Kuvadia of IT Consultancy Group said, "Most of the meets are more
sales pep talks than technical seminars. We need the latter more to sell
more."

Taking cognizance of these issues, all distributor representatives assured
the gathered partners that they would pass this feedback to the vendors. But
they also urged partners to keep them informed of such suggestions on a regular
basis rather than wait for The DQ Week to organize an IT Panchayat where such
issues could be brought to the fore.

The event saw interesting presentations given by sponsors like Sify, Hitachi
Data Systems and Microworld Technologies.