Too Little Focus on Support Resulting in Non-functional Smartphones

Is your newly acquired smartphone getting switched off by itself as if it is ghost controlled, or worse, is it refusing to store contacts or run a particular application? And, the next day you end up surfing through the world wide web in order to locate the nearest service center of your phone manufacturer. At times the nearest service center too can be unbelievably far, things can get even worse than that.

Chances are that even if you manage to get to the service station with your troubled phone and anxious mind, you might not be able to get your phone back in a perfect working condition. As the smartphone penetration is riding a high tide, the product lifecycle is taking an inverse dip. With the product span being barely a year, a lot of customers have had a first-hand experience which has been anything but pleasant.

So, what are the vendors doing when it comes to support services? And, what do customers have to say about it? We might be ahead in the adoption, but how do we fare against the West when it comes to support services?

Dataquest brings you the customer side of the story, and an analysis of vendors support strategies.

The I Issues

By I we mean both India-specific and infrastructural issues. Says Ashwin Puro tech analyst, When compared with the West, support services doled out by Apple and BlackBerry in India are really disappointing. However, reasons Prasanto K Roy, president and chief editor, CyberMedia India, The support services in the West are strong primarily because they are driven by very strong legislations and consumer laws.

In the US, for instance, it becomes imperative for the vendor to repair or replace a faulty device, especially if it is in the warranty period. Even Apple, that is pompous and not too well known for its repair/support activities, has pulled up its socks and got its act right for its US consumers.
However in India, given the loosely knit consumer law structure that is in place, OEMs do little to ensure a seamless service infrastructure for their buyers. The infrastructure here is lacking not because OEMs dont have the capability to create a service chain, but because there are no laws to force them to get their act together.

However, analysts and consumers concur on the opinion that India is on the right path when it comes to support services. Most of the leading vendors are beginning to experiment with the outsourced model for servicing their customers and that is, according to analysts, the only way forward. Given the current service models and sales figures of smartphones, third party service providers are OEMs best bets.

However, what we do need to establish, like the West here, is accountability. According to Puro, vendors interference is a crucial link at times. He says, Vendors need to decide what that point is in the service cycle when they need to either intervene and interact directly with the consumer or seek accountability from the vendor.

The outsourcing model isnt working out well in India (with the exception of Nokia perhaps) mostly because the magnitude of operations is huge and there is a clear lack of accountability as well. Once the model evolves and climbs up the maturity curve, outsourcing model might be able to ensure better services.

The Consumer Story

Despite the fact that vendors are upbeat about their sales in India, consumers have a dismal story to tell. According to Amit Chugh, a BlackBerry user whose phone was incessantly hanging and was giving battery problems, his numerous calls to the service center didnt help. His visit to their service center also didnt yield any results. It was only after spending three hours on the phone with a customer care executive that some of his issues got resolved.

iPhone user Prateek Sharma, a hard core techie, was in for a shock when his iPhone refused to support a couple of sketching apps. When he approached the service center, he was told quite rudely that all he needs is an updated iPhone version because nothing can be done to his existing model to support these apps. And, his phone was only eight months old.

Another horror story came from the HTC quarters. For Shyam Duggal, a senior management member of a MNC, his six-month-old HTC phone became nothing less than a nightmare for him. After charging his phone for hours daily, he finally went to the service center, only to know that he has to first take an appointment of sorts to show his phone to the concerned people. When he went next, he was given a time of 5.15 pm on a particular day; and when he reached at 5.20 pm, there were again a series of problems.

At the end of the day, what happened was thisthey took the battery for inspection and at a much later date asked him to come and collect the battery at a particular time. Unable to reach at that particular time and unable to get his battery, Duggal now possesses a new Nokia phone. But, his HTC one is still lying with him without the battery.

A few vendors with their cheap offerings like Micromax, Spice, Lava, and Wynncom have managed to capture an impressive market share in a short span of time, but they have really not set up any support infrastructure. Also, given their price offerings, their defect rate is also coming out to be atleast five times more than established vendors like Nokia. With so many trouble-giving handsets and nowhere to go, customers are indeed facing a lot of problems. Consequently, complaint portals on the web are overflowing with sorry tales such as Micromax mobile gone dead or a Spice Mobile not storing addresses or supporting a Google app.

Manufacturing Trouble

If we are to analyze support strategies of some of the leading OEMs in the smartphone domain, a few of them are very clear. While Nokia is clearly the best in the domain with an established outsourcing model that seems to be working fine, Apple clearly doesnt subscribe to the servicing bit at all. At Apple, they only want you to upgrade to the next version or buy another device. If it does have a replacement policy of sorts in place in the US, it is mostly because of legal obligation.

For other vendors like HTC, service is either not a priority at all, or it is thoroughly neglected. BlackBerry however, is beginning to take its support rather seriously. Says Sachit Gayakwad, head, corporate communications, RIM India, For us, service and support are very crucial things and we do intend to concentrate a lot on these things in India.

However, it is surprising that inspite of being a tech savvy nationthat we are considered to bethere is hardly an online procedure for registering a grievance or asking for assistance.

But, the real push has to come from the legislation side because unless there is a legal obligation coupled with firm consumer laws, consumers will continue to have horror stories to tell.

Mehak Chawla
mehakc@cybermedia.co.in