BARODA, INDIA: 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.