SOFTWARE WARRANTY

Warranty policies are not well-documented...

"Whose responsibility is it if the CD is broken or the media is missing?"

Ashish Agarwal, Director, Trifin Technologies

There are no well-documented policies to address warranty issues in

software. And this is the case with majority of the vendors. Whose

responsibility is it if the CD is broken or whose responsibility is it if the

media is missing? All these are critical issues that need to be addressed. The

customer generally comes back to us with these issues. And they want immediate

redressal, which at times is not possible.

Turnaround times are not defined...



Vendors take responsibility of the product and the software. They also take

responsibility of replacing it with another CD, but the time for all this is not

defined. And customers are not ready to wait for long. To ensure that the

customer is satisfied, we have to provide a replacement from our pockets. And

our margins don´t allow that. In fact at times, the customer stops payment till

a replacement is made. In such a scenario it is the partner’s money that gets

blocked and not the vendor’s.

No clear cut policies...



For companies that are selling both OEM packs and box products, the

differential policies are not clear. Even if they are clearly defined, they are

not properly communicated. It is the vendor´s responsibility to address issues

of warranty on box packs, but there have been cases where resellers have been

providing the replacements. If it is the responsibility of the reseller to do

the fulfillment, then either the distributor or the vendor should have

replacement stocks ready on hand.

Helplines don´t really help...



The objective of any helpline is to remove intermediaries. So what good is a

helpline that asks the customer to go back to the reseller. Most helplines do

just that. Many times, the escalation is not to the customer´s satisfaction and

he comes back to us. If one were to look at the root cause for all this, it

could boil down to a lack of standard procedures to address warranty issues.

The benefits are missing...



The end-user license agreement is between the customer and the software

organization. Why then is the reseller, who is a mere trader, brought into the

scene? The margins are so thin that the reseller cannot afford any bad debts or

even delayed payments. So when the remuneration is missing, why should the

reseller be asked to intervene even for OEM packs. After all, it is the software

company´s product.

Policies are publicly available...

Policies pertaining to warranty are clearly defined. These are public

statements and are also available on the company´s web site. More so, they are

clearly communicated to the channel and the customer base. But one must

appreciate the fact that with such a huge customer base across the country there

can be holes in communication.

This means that some of the customers may not get the right information at

the right time, but we ensure that these policies are included in communication

that we send out. Many a time, they are a part of our direct mailing campaigns

too. There are also clearly defined policies that address issues like broken or

missing media.

Turnaround times are well defined...



In the case of Microsoft, the turnaround time for different products are

well defined. And this ranges from anywhere between 24 to 72 hours. More

critical is the fact that our distribution network in the country is good enough

for us to get a product to any part of the country within 24 hours. Our direct

presence in seven locations is augmented by the vast distribution network and

offices of our distributors. And we ensure that turnaround times are kept at a

minimum.

More customers are coming back...



The MSConnect hotline for both customers and partners enables us to handle

all complaints directly. And we have in the recent past observed that more and

more customers are coming back to us directly. There is a clearly defined

escalation process for calls that are not closed by our customer service

executives and the MD is also informed of such cases. More than just the

hotline, we constantly take partners through training programs, both formal and

informal, to address any issues that they may have.

Replacement is direct...



Wherever there are issues with respect to replacement or warranty, Microsoft

deals with the same directly. On top of all this, we give our customers an

update once every quarter through a direct mail campaign. So it is our constant

endeavor to keep closely in touch with our customers. Also we don´t expect the

reseller to maintain stock. Our distribution model gives us the capability to

ship stocks anywhere in the country within two working days. And we have an

understanding with our distributors about maintenance of replacement stocks.