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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Canon cannot provide service

CASE 1

I am canon's empowered partner. But now I decided to stop selling canon products here after. When I joined the canon they said all the products covers on-site warranty. I confirmed that with canon people more than 10 times. They said that canon's biggest strength is its on-site service warranty. I sold lot of mono-lasers, all-in-ones and all-in-one fax printers from canon. All the things gone well, till canon suddenly changed all its personnel. The new area managers, service engineers and service managers never came to meet the dealers, resellers in upcountry. With these new faces of canon the total canon company's face has changed ugly.

I sold one canon lbp 2900b laser printer to one of my customer. The bill date is 02 July 2010. On September 23rd, the customer called me for service. When I checked the printer, I found the heater (fuser) unit is not working. So, I called the canon call centre 1800-3333-66. They dropped a bomb. The customer care person said very coolly that there is no on-site warranty service available for my town. I had to take the printer to the Chennai service centre. When I argued with him he beg sorry for the inconvenience and cut the phone. Several times before that I called canon call centre and booked for service. They gave on-site service to the customers. Suddenly, they changed the policy. Whatever it is, if they changed their policy, they must instruct it to the dealers and customers.

The customer got angry and argued that I promised to provide on-site warranty to the printer. I called the area distributor Sri Balaji Computers, Vellore (Ph. 09843122597) and asked for a solution. He asked me to send the printer to him and said that there is a canon service centre's branch is exists in Vellore. I sent the printer to him on 23rd September itself. We didn't receive back the printer till 16th October. I called Sri Balaji computers and he gave me the address of the Vellore service centre. I called the office and they said that it would be ready the same day. I took my car and went to the Vellore service centre (Square Network Solutions Pvt. Ltd) and got back the printer. I spent 1000 Indian rupees for that. The printer worked for 2 days and found the Teflon roll problem. The customer is not ready to send the printer to the service centre and wait for another one month. So, I decided to give him a new Epson Laser printer and got back the canon printer. I lost nearly 6000 Indian rupees (plus 1000 for transport) in this business.

Update as on 09th November 5.00 pm. The distributor of Canon, Sri Balaji Computers, Vellore gave a new Canon LBP 2900b Printer to the customer as a compensation. We proved that we stand on our words, What about you Canon?

CASE 2

I bought Canon All-in-one laser MF4350D from Sri Balaji Computers, Vellore and sold to Regenboog India Foundation, an NGO in Tiruvannamalai on 28th January 2010. After installation, I found that ADF is not working. Alike the first case, the call centre people asked the customer to take the printer to the Chennai service centre of the Canon. He is shocked. Before sales they said that the printer covers on-site warranty. But after sold the printer they said on-site warranty available only to the selected cities. As the call centre people instructed, if the customer take the printer to the service centre, he should spent atleast 3000 Indian rupees for transport to give the printer to the service centre and another 3000 Indian rupees for transport to get back the printer from service centre. If any customer would ready to spent Rs. 6000 to service a printer which worth is Rs. 17000 only. After several calls to the call centre they sent a service person to the customer place. He examined the printer and said one part is missing in the ADF unit and he would come back with it next week. But he didn't return to the customer place for past 10 months.

CONCLUSION

I leave the decision to buy any Canon products to you. But I decided to send back all the Canon printers, I have in stock to the distributor and stop payment to the distributor for the printers I gave to the customer as compensation. I want to know only one thing from these cases. Whether the promises given by the company to the customer regarding warranty and service matters at the time of sales can be changed and affect the customer within the warranty period, if the company changes the policy of its warranty and service.