For the most part, consumers here should be forgiven for dreading those moments when a recent major purchase goes defunct and they have to deal with the agency they purchased the goods from. Warranties and after sales support are virtually not worth the paper they are printed on. But there are a few exceptions to the rule, and when such a situation arises, these very exceptions deserve the accolades for forging a positive link between buyer and seller.

Some time back I purchased several Carrier air-conditioning units from the local distributor. Soon after, the plastic thermostat selector knobs kept breaking off, and a few units developed this deep throttling rumble similar to a jet engine taking off. After repeated calls to the outlet I had purchased these units from, the distributor’s maintenance department finally sent me a couple of technicians.

Upon completing the examining of the units and the broken selector switches, these technicians proceeded to churn out every excuse in the book including the humidity in Jeddah, and finally concluded by blaming my 98-pound Asian housekeeper for using excessive force on the thermostats resulting in the broken knobs. Gritting my teeth and bidding them a curt and hasty farewell, I resorted to living with my AC faults using a pair of pliers to turn the thermostat controls and a pair of industrial earplugs.

A few months later in a newspaper article, I happened upon a supplement in one of the newspapers on Carrier air-conditioning systems. A name popped up, a Mr. Aftab Khan, the general manager of Carrier Industries, SA.

Figuring I needed to air my grievances and with nothing to lose and through a few phone calls, I finally tracked down Mr. Khan to his office in Riyadh.

In a brief telephone conversation, I explained to Mr. Khan my dissatisfaction with the way things had turned out. Mr. Khan explained to me that while he was not directly involved with the types of units I had purchased, he would have some one in Jeddah contact me to sort things out.

After giving him my mobile phone number and hanging up, I figured this to be another venture into the realm of consumer brush-off. Oh well, I tried, I consoled myself!

Surprisingly, five minutes later, my mobile phone chirped. It was the Carrier area service manager for Jeddah, a Mr. M. Sajid Tungekar who was very apologetic for my tribulations earlier at the hands of the service men. He explained that they were not his people, having been sent from the distributor’s pool of technicians. And while the distributor represented Carrier SA as an agency, each was a separate entity. Furthermore he volunteered to visit the house himself and check out my complaints that very day.

That afternoon, Mr. Sajid Tungekar dropped in promptly in the time given along with his senior supervisor Mr. Akbar Suri. After examining all the units in the house, they set up a repair date on site to minimize any inconveniences. No hint of blame or a shirking of responsibilities ever materialized. And sure enough they stood true to their word.

On the appointed date, Mr. Suri along with his meticulous Carrier crew managed to complete all the repairs, reinstalled some of the units correctly and refurbished the grills and filters as well. To allay any future fears, they left me contact numbers assuring me that I could call whenever a problem arose. There was also a visit by the quality control manager from Riyadh, Mr. Pervez who noted some of the recurring defects in the units for future workshop modifications. For once, I the consumer was awed.

Lest any of my readers mistakenly take this column for an advertisement for Carrier, let me assure them it is not. Instead it is recognition of what customer service should always be. Other companies should take a page from Carrier’s strategy towards their customers and incorporate them into their own policy and procedure manuals!

I conclude, by thanking Mr. Aftab Khan for having the foresight to create this vision of outstanding customer care, Mr. M. Sajid Tungekar for enforcing such a dynamic mission statement, and Mr. Akbar Suri and his skilled crew for executing it.

Their individual actions have genuinely gone a long way to pacify my previously injured faith in after sales service.

They are indeed true professionals!

— Tariq A. Al-Maeena, ([email protected])