Philips To Launch Chain Of Call Centres

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Mumbai: : In a bid to provide value-added services to its customers, the Rs 1,667-crore Philips India Ltd is planning to launch its first call centre called ‘Philips Call Centre’ in India in the beginning of 2003. After implementing this initiative, the company plans to expand the number of call centres to five in major metros like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore within a year.

The objective behind the move is to enable customers to lodge complaints regarding the functioning of the company’s consumer electronic products, according to Philips India Ltd head-service, consumer electronics division Sudhir Kohli.

Says Mr Kohli:”We are planning to set up call centres (looking at the location) where more than one authorised service centre is present so that any complaints made by customers is connected to the nearest service centre.”

With the move, the company hopes to garner revenues by way of raising customer satisfaction levels. Adds Mr Kohli: ‘‘Customer feedback will be sought through customer satisfaction measurement called ‘Cosam’ through survey mailers as soon as the customer has experienced Philips service so that corrective action, if required, can be undertaken.”

Close on the heels of launching its first Star Service Centre in Mumbai, the company now plans to expand the number of centres from 8 to 25 across the country by the middle of 2003, informs Mr Kohli. “The objective is to focus on high-end product sales such as Plasma TV and Projection TV among others. Since, these hi-tech products require sophisticated service facilities, the image centres will be linked online to the Philips service headquarters at Amsterdam/Singapore for updating technical data and ordering parts,” he adds.

While the Star Service Centre in Mumbai will cater to after-sales-service for the high-end products, the remaining Star Service Centres across the country will cater to the company’s conventional consumer electronics products, he adds.

As for the working mechanism of Star Service Centre, Mr Kohli informs that the company has installed a specialised software called ‘Compair’ , a PC-based diagnostic tool for finding faults and repair of high-end Philips audio/video products. “The major advantages of the software is faster and detailed diagnosis and reduction in repair time, which helps reduce repair cost,’’ he adds.