Wednesday, January 2, 2013

SERVICE CENTERS Vs "ROAD-SIDE" TECHNICIANS [THE WAR!]

There was this guy Chinedu who came all the way from Edo to Lagos to repair his faulty Sony home theatre system. When Chinedu arrived lagos,he went straight to Alaba international where he bought the set since he didn’t know where SONY SERVICE CENTER  was.
To cut the long story short, he met the “japan-trained” ibo technicians in Alaba who told him their little shop is the Authorized SONY SERVICE CENTER and the problem will be fixed immediately. They ended up not been able to fix the set and also damaging the power board completely with their over-heating soldering iron. The funny part of the story is that they later gave Chinedu  the address to SONY SERVICE CENTER in Apapa!
The irony of this whole issue is that Chinedu’s  Home theater was still under warranty and they would have fixed it for FREE at the service center but the service warranty became void the moment the set was tampered with outside and Chinedu had to pay a high sum to get his set fixed.
A lot of consumers have at one time or the other fallen into the hands of these road-side technicians and have ended up damaging the equipment. If any of your equipment/gadget becomes faulty, your first  port of call should be the SERVICE CENTER of your equipment brand. If you don’t know their address or if they have a Service center in Nigeria, Google it.
Am I trying to discredit our “road-side” service technicians? NO! Far from it. But the issue is a lot of them lack basic professional ethics. You don’t have to have a PhDs in ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING to know:
·         You have to treat/handle  a customer’s Unit with  a little dignity
·         You have  to buy the RIGHT equipment/tools to work with and not those soldering iron without heat control.[greed of gain won’t allow some of them do the right thing though].
·         You have to update yourself on the new technologies around. A lot of them know next to nothing about LED/LCD/PLASMA. Some cannot even read circuit diagrams, all they do is guess work.
I can go on and on about the several short comings of these technicians who have got great growth potential and become employers of labor but have decided to remain at their level and guess what? Technology is by-passing them daily.Imagine,we are no longer using CRT tv any longer but LED and LCDs.Very soon,we will stop using DVD home theaters and switch to BlueRay players!I have seen the circuit boards of some of this BlueRay players and I can tell you with my over 10years of experience on the job, our dear “road-side” technicians don’t belong in that league!
Its not that I am making a case for this SERVICE CENTERS but they are still the best bet because its their product in the first place and they receive technical support from their parent company which our other technicians don’t have. The Service centers too have got their own issues which some of them have refused to address because they enjoy a bit of monopoly in their brand-sphere. For example, if I am a SAMSUNG addict, SAMSUNG will enjoy a bit of monopoly in that area. Some issues I have come across with these Service centers include:
·         High cost of repairs for out-of-warranty  products.
·         CUSTOMER SERVICE ISSUES!![purposely in CAPS]
·         Lack of service center spread across the country[LG is trying in this respect]
·         *SPECIAL ISSUE* If your LED/LCD screen is broken? Forget repairs, just buy a new one. This is because the cost of changing the screen is 90% cost of a new set.
This are just some of the issues but if you ever  have any issues with any Service center and you feel you have a genuine case, then I will advice you reach :CONSUMER PROTECTION COUNCIL [CPC]…www.cpc.gov.ng Hotline:08056002020,08056003030. Or you try this guy @omojuwa[Recommended trouble-maker on twitter…LOL!..Respect!]  or just contact me @cooltechnician on twitter.
PS:I will write a follow up on this piece soon on the immense opportunities that abound in starting and operating a service center with little capital IF you have the required expertise.



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