AquaSure Berhampur: The Third Visit
AquaSure, a water-purifier franchise in Berhampur, has an annual maintenance customer, Mrs Panda, whose unit has failed three times in eleven days. Each visit was closed in the system as 'attended', but the purifier still leaks. She has a family wedding at home in four days and has told the technician she will post the video in a local Facebook group and complain to the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. The franchise's AMC terms promise replacement after three failed repairs. The service manager argues the third visit does not count because the technician noted 'customer mishandling - unit unplugged'. The spare kit is four days away and the franchise owner is travelling. The frontline supervisor can approve goodwill up to ₹1,500 without calling the owner. Mrs Panda has been a customer for six years and has referred at least four neighbours, two of whom are still active AMC holders.
1. Assess the severity of this complaint and set out what the supervisor should do and say in the first ten minutes. What must be avoided?
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Severity: high. Four factors stack up - a hard deadline (the wedding), a safety issue (a leaking electrical appliance), a public-channel threat, and a consumer-forum complaint that costs far more than a replacement unit. Her direct fee value is modest, but she sits at the centre of four referrals, two of them live AMC accounts, which matters more in a small town than her own bill.
First ten minutes:
- Call her before she posts. Open with the specific history - 'three visits in eleven days; that is not acceptable' - so she knows the record was read.
- Apologise for the experience without arguing about the mishandling note.
- State exactly what will happen, who will come, and when; give a time you can keep.
- Log the call with the wedding date as a deadline so a shift change does not restart the story.
Avoid: repeating the technical defence, blaming the technician by name, promising a date you cannot hold, offering the hamper as a condition for deleting a post, or asking her to 'adjust'. Each of these converts a service complaint into a trust complaint.
2. The AMC promises replacement after three failed repairs and the manager disputes the third visit. Decide the resolution, showing how you would use the ₹1,500 authority and what you would escalate.
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On the facts, the term is met. Three visits in eleven days, and the customer-visible outcome - the leak - never changed. The manager's reliance on the 'unplugged' note is weak: it was written after the third failure, was never raised with the customer during the visit, and does not explain a leak. Pressing that point risks a consumer case and a public post over a unit worth far less than either.
Resolution: swap the faulty component today using the kit from the display unit rather than waiting four days, and give written assurance that if the leak recurs the unit will be replaced outright.
₹1,500 authority: use it as a gesture, not a settlement - a festival hamper or a free three-month AMC extension delivered with the repair. Keep it non-cash so it cannot be read as an admission of liability or used to set a precedent for other complaints.
Escalate: call or message the owner within the hour for pre-approval of a full replacement if the swap fails, and record both the request and the reply. Also confirm the technician's visit slot in writing to the customer.
3. Identify the root cause that allowed this to reach three visits, and set out two controls that would prevent a repeat.
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Root cause is the closure rule, not the technician's skill. Jobs were marked 'attended' when the technician's action was finished, not when the customer's problem was solved. A leak reported three times should have triggered a supervisor review after the second visit; the system had no such trigger, and the 'mishandling' note was used as a shield rather than raised with the customer face to face.
Control 1 - close on customer confirmation. A job can be closed only after the customer confirms (OTP, missed call, or signature on the job card). Any repeat complaint on the same unit within 15 days reopens the ticket automatically and flags it to the supervisor.
Control 2 - automatic escalation with real authority. Any address receiving three visits in 30 days goes to the supervisor with a standing approval (say ₹3,000 and a replacement trigger), so nobody has to chase a travelling owner while a wedding deadline runs down.
Follow-through: brief the team on the recovery paradox - a fast, generous recovery after failure often leaves a stronger customer than a fault-free year - and call Mrs Panda after seven days to confirm the leak is gone. Record the outcome in her history.