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CMDA addresses service issues with HP

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CIOL Bureau
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PUNE, INDIA: Pune-based Computers and Media Dealers Association (CMDA) had a closed room meeting with Hewlett Packard recently to sort out some of the recurrent problems that partners in Pune were facing with the company’s post-sales support.

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While some of the issues were resolved, the rest have been left open and CMDA hopes that a common understanding will be reached about them shortly.

The executive council of CMDA met with Sanjay Kumar, Channel Account Manager—Pune, HP India

Some of the issues that were discussed in the meeting were:

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1) Frequent changes and relocation of service centers in the city. However, HP clarified that in the past one year, the service centers in the city had not been changed and there was no change in their address either. Nonetheless, CMDA officials requested the company to intimate its local partners if a service center was added or removed and post the details on its website, which was met with an affirmative by HP.

2) Furnish a matrix of the various service centers for its different product ranges, especially its high-end printers, as well the escalation points within the company’s system. “This would help us escalate any issues which were not resolved in the acceptable time limit to the higher authorities in HP,” said Shital Nahar, President, CMDA. HP has agreed to share the same with the association.

3) A need to have a policy guideline on the acceptable turnaround time limit for replacement and repairs of products. HP informed them that the reason it has been facing complaints from partners about this was because there was a shortage of parts being shipped to India. The company is reportedly in touch with its global logistics team to resolve this issue and hoped for things to turn around within a month. But Nahar said that CMDA representatives were not sure if things would change and will monitor this situation.

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4) Replacement of dead on arrival (DoA) cases. HP demanded the original invoice from the national or the regional distributor. “If a dealer had purchased a product from a reseller, it is not possible for him to have this invoice or source it from the distributor in question,” informed Nahar. Kumar however told the present CMDA members that this was the company’s DoA policy and the company would have to take a call on this after careful consideration.

5) Nahar also informed that HP does not accept handwritten serial numbers of products for service-related issue, which the company has now agreed to do.

6) Though high-end printers carry onsite warranty, there were instances when this support was not extended to customers. Nahar informed that Kumar clarified that all high-end printers would henceforth get onsite support as it was difficult to carry them to the service center for repairs.

While an agreeable solution was found for some of the issues, Nahar said that they are still waiting for HP to revert on some other areas. “We are also monitoring the situation to see whether they are able to deliver the promises made to us,” he added.

CMDA has decided that it will systematically take up service-related issues with the vendors over the next few months and will align a meeting with LG Electronics next.

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