Service issues bother APC dealers

New Delhi

May 19, 2008

In view of the after-sales service and support being offered by APC, dealers
across the country are refraining from selling APC products. While some APC
partners have shifted their focus towards selling other brands yet others are
reducing the volumes of APC products they used to sell.

According to partners, the after-sales support services are worsening every
day. It has reached the point where they have been forced to reduce their focus
on selling APC.

Satpal Singh of Chandigarh-based DS Data Spec mentioned, “The service
condition has surely gone down. It has now been more than a year and the
services have not improved. We did talk to APC officials in person, but there
has been no developments thereafter.”

He further stated the company has come out with a new policy wherein in case
of dead on arrival (DoA) or replacement issues, an APC person will first check
the condition of the equipment and after thorough inspection replace it. But the
problem with this new policy is that most of the times APC officials are busy
and the issue goes unnoticed or the procedure gets delayed leaving dealers in a
lurch.

Vinod Verma of Key Computers, Nagpur said, “The after-sales services from
APC's end has certainly deteriorated. Anytime a service issue is logged it
takes three to four days to sort out the issue, whereas the company policy
states that issues are to be sorted out within 48 hours. However, when we
brought the issue to their notice they only assured us, but there has been no
respite.”

Deepak Vidhani from Chhattisgarh-based Infotech Solutions elucidated, “When
there is a service issue, the company asks the customer to get in touch with
their call center. But the call logging system is flawed and the customer ends
up coming back to us. APC expects the customer to do all sorts of tests
beforehand which he is not aware of and as a result we have to send an engineer
from our company to get their problems sorted out.”

He further mentioned that according to APC's policy, call logs or service
issues have to be sorted within 48 hours whereas it takes their service
providers seven to eight days to respond and rectify the problem. However, that
is not the only problem plaguing dealers in the region. Vidhani mentioned that
APC's former sub-distributor, Balajee Computers for Chhattisgarh region, was
agile when it came to resolving service issues but recently APC appointed
another sub-distributor in Korba to look after Chhattisgarh region and since
then the service and support level went down.

Talking about the same, Sunil Agarwal, CEO of Balajee Computers stated. “When
we were functioning as the sub-distributor for APC we used to log the complaint
with their service center and get the problems sorted out. But for the past one
and half months, we have noticed that the company is lacking immensely when it
comes to providing after-sales support. It takes them 20 to 25 days to respond
to a call and hence we have reduced our focus on selling APC products. We are
now concentrating on selling other brands.”

DJ Mistry of YouDan Computers and Peripherals, Chennai stated, “The service
and support condition has definitely gone down and the condition is worsening
every day and it is owing to the worsening situation that we have reduced the
volume of APC products we were selling.”

Sharing his view on the issue, Ashu Batta of Chandigarh-based HH Technologies
said, “The after-sales service support was never good from APC's end. Given
the worsening conditions we resolved to promote the competitor brands in this
space.” He further mentioned that APC now contributes less than one percent to
their overall business as compared to earlier when it used to contribute two to
three percent of revenue to their overall business.

Bhavesh Druva of Gujarat-based Micro Chip mentioned that in the upcountry
regions the service conditions are worse as compared to the metro. The dealer
however had other reasons for reducing their focus on APC. “We had reduced our
focus on APC products two to three months back because the entry-level products
of APC are priced slightly higher than competitor brands and the services have
never been good. Earlier APC used to contribute 8-10 percent to our revenues but
now it contributes less than four to five percent,” said Druva.

When contacted, A Subodh Tagare, Director-Marketing, APC stated, “We are
aware of the situation in these areas. There are certain issues with regards to
after-sales services and we are addressing them. These are situational problems
which come up occasionally, and we handle them as and when they arise. APC-MGE
reiterates its commitment towards its distributors and consumers of the region.”