Re: Carrier Aircon Limited India

I would like to bring to your kind attention my experience of choosing your product and the quality of service for installation at my apartment in Anna nagar, chennai.

I purchased one split type and two window type each 1.5 tons capacity from your authorized dealer M/S Jayam & Co Anna nagar, Chennai -40 on 31st January 2007. I was informed that M/s. Jayam & Co. are also the authorized for installation and periodic servicing of the products of Carrier Air conditioners.

I requested Jayam & Co to carry out the installation in my newly acquired apartment at D-4, Juniper apartments, TAS Enclave, Anna nagar Chennai - 40 on 03rd Feb (Saturday). One Mr. Elango appeared as their technician to carry out the installation, beginning with Split A. C unit. When we opened the accessories kit from the sealed box, we observed that there was no insulating sleeve material for the copper tubes. Mr.Elango advised that we should buy a set of wall brackets for the mounting of the outdoor unit, botched screws for wall fastening and insulating material from a different supplier in Anna nagar. This we purchased. But Mr. Elango advised that the accompanying special bolts are not reliable for the job as compared with poached screws.

Later during the course of fitments of the wall bracket, we found Mr. Elango is not a skilled technician, as he jammed the botched screws to the wall with hammer, breaking some of the heads and weakening the others. When he was ready to mount the outdoor unit over the ill-fitted wall bracket, I stopped him and reported the matter to Jayam & Co, expressing my dissatisfaction over their service.

Same time I contacted your Chennai office (around noon on saturday 3rd Feb). I was attended by Mr.K. Raja Ganesh (Service Engineer- Customer support). Upon reporting the circumstances and asking for assistance from Carrier staff for providing skilled installation assistance, he advised me hold on, stating that he would contact me promptly within five minutes to tell me the course of action that I should follow. BUT HE DID NOT CONTACT BACK AS PROMISED. My pursued calls to your Chennai office bore no result, as the security staff stated that there was no personnel present in their office to attend to me, being a Saturday and that Mr.Raja Ganesh had already left for home. This is regarded as a serious lapse on the part of your staff, who is vested with important responsibility to deal with your customers.

I went to Jayam & Co and met Mr. Dhanapal in-charge of their A. C servicing section. He promised me that he would send a senior technician on the following day promptly by 10.30 hrs to competently handle and successfully complete the installation.

On Sunday (4th Feb) Mr. Jayaraj, with another of his associate attended. He removed the broken botched screws from the wall and mounted the supporting bracket with the expandable screws originally provided. He mounted the outdoor unit with its fan facing the wall side, saying that it is an air-throw type and is recommended to be mounted in that fashion. At the time of testing, he found that fuse was tripping off at the mains, every time he tried to plugging in to power supply. Then he reported to me that there was some shorting problem with the earth line in the building, which is to be rectified before he could take a trial of the split AC system. Being Sunday the building electrician was not available to check this. Mr. Jayaraj stated that once after rectification of this defect, we should approach him to try out the unit.

Therefore the second day of installation went off leaving me in anger and disgust.

On 5th instant (Monday) Mr. Raja Ganesh contacted me and asked me the status of our problem. I accused him of acting irresponsibly on Saturday in utter disregard to the customer's complaint. Mr. Raja Ganesh apologized for his mistake and promised to attend the matter personally by noon on Monday. After some time, again he called saying that he had to attend some other work and would be late. I contacted your Service Manager - Mr. Ragothaman and reported the irresponsible behavior of Mr. Raja Ganesh. Mr. Ragothaman promised that he would direct his staff to immediately attend to the matter without any delay.

Mr. Raja Ganesh arrived by 13.00 hrs at my apartment. At the same time I had an electrician check up the faulty wiring in the building. After checking, it was noted that there was no problem with the building wiring, and power supply was available up to the voltage stabilizer, with the outdoor AC unit wire terminals disconnected. This proved that the power supply terminals within the Outdoor unit was wrongly connected. After observing this, Mr. Raja Ganesh contacted the Mr. Prakash, Owner of Jayam & Co, who responded by sending the same technician Mr. Jayaraj for checking the mistake. Mr. Jayaraj, checked and reconnected the terminals at the outdoor unit and found that the system could be switched ON. Again it was found that when the compressor unit started, there was an abnormal ruffling noise. The unit was switched OFF and on re-checking, found that the thermo col packing for the compressor (kept within the outdoor unit) was not removed at the time of installation. After the same was removed, the split AC was tested and found satisfactory, by around 15.00 hrs. Mr. Jayaraj noted his mistake. I hope he has understood that no matter his length of experience, he could still make mistakes with a casual approach. (like faulty wiring connection and not removing the thermo col packing material from the compressor).

The above incident is narrated to you NOT TO ACCUSE THE NAMED INDIVIDUALS for THEIR ATTITUDE OR lack of COMPETENCY.

The purpose of this report to you is only to enable you work out fool proof remedies that your future customers do not suffer in utter disgust after buying your equipment.

Please rectify the following:

1. Your customer support officer acted without any pride of job or good responsibility and not sensitive to your customer, who had purchased the equipment from Carrier Aircon, in preference to many others in the market, at a substantially higher price.

2. Your customer support officer is found not forceful enough with the dealer, in ensuring that they execute installation effectively, which alone would maintain your product strength and customer support.

3. If you have authorized dealers on your behalf to install your equipment, then you should back them up with proper continuous training to handle your equipment with due caution. Your system must assess dealers' technical staff capability, before licensing them to represent you.

4. Your dealers are not trained to explain to the customers about your various models, to choose the right ones suitable to the site conditions. Attitudinally they seem to be more constrained to push their sale through, rather than equipping themselves with product information.

5. It is found that your brand new installation of both Split and window units in our apartment are noisier, in comparison with similar capacity LG products which we have in our house, which are now more than three years old.

6 .The accessories supplied with your installation kit must be adequate that customer should not have to purchase any extra material from outside. For your information, LG air conditioner installations are provided with a kit of accessories much more than what is required.

7. I regret to have chosen Carrier air conditioners relying on your brand name, and having paid far more price and received lesser by way of both quality of product and the technical support.

8. Having purchased the products from Jayam & Co., I have to practically depend on them for after sales service, being your authorized firm. Therefore, I recommend to you to enhance their technical skills with a rigorous training program from your Organization.

9. Needless to say that you certainly have to strengthen your staff attitude towards customers, if you are committed to demonstrate to the public that your product and services are far more reliable and worthy of higher price in a competitive market.

I await your response to my narration of experience with your product, while I still would wish to take the matter to the media to bring "Buyers Beware" awareness to the common public.