The Bangalore Blog

How do you screw a loyal customer?

Posted Vinaya HS

Consider our experience with Sangeetha Electronics, a popular mobile phone vendor in Bangalore, with stores located on JC Road, Jayanagar 4th Block, and at the Forum Mall, Koramangala. We (myself and Avinash) have been regular customers at Sangeetha over the past couple of years, having bought several mobile phones for friends and family. In total, we have done business over INR 60,000 with Sangeetha. About ten days back Avinash bought a Nokia carry pouch (worth INR 250) for his new Sony Ericcsson K700i – both the items being bought at Sangeetha. A couple of days later he noticed that the new carry pouch had a defect.

We could not take it back to the store until today. The dealer refused to acknowledge the defect insisting that he could not send it back to Nokia. It seems he would have happily replaced the pouch had we brought it back within a day or two. No amount of explanation (expressing our helplessness for not coming earlier) could change his mind. He admitted that he was ready to lose us as a customer (and any future business that we would bring) but would not replace the pouch. That we felt was injustice because we have always convinced (and in some cases forced) people to buy their mobile phones at Sangeetha. We had no reason to be their brand ambassadors, but we chose to. From today, we no longer are.

“Customer Service” is one business acumen that many a business in India needs to learn. What would you have done if you were in the dealer’s shoes? Would you be willing to sacrifice INR 250 just to keep a loyal customer? And having read about our experience, would you buy your mobile phone at Sangeetha?

116 thoughts on “How do you screw a loyal customer?”

  1. as promised, providing a contact for Prakash & Co. – you can contact Vijay at vijayom@gmail.com. he asked not to put his phone number her for obvious reasons, but if you would like to speak to him, you can write to him and he’ll give you his number..

    hope you guys have better experiences :)

  2. Hey krishna, i request you to read all the posts sentence by sentence and u ll support them any more!!!

    We had horrible treatment with them,when i say that am not telling abt sales man or some one but the service from them n respect to the customer is “zero”,

    Just see what “sonam” has faced u ll find many more sonams above and much more than convincing you to say that there is some thing wrong with them…cos all us cant be wrong at a time?????

    ARE WE?

  4. Hello,

    I have gone through this blog on Sangeetha and their so called mis adventure with clients.

    I have been a customer of Sangeetha for the past over 5 years and have bought quite a few mobiles for myself from their showrooms and have also recommended my friends to them. Till date i really do not have a problem with them. They have been good and polite with me whenever i have gone there. The good this about them is that they have specialists who can actually get you to understand the product you are buying and they can also suggest products that could suit your requirements. I have been to other mobile shops where they sell only by the tech specs!

    I would also say that no shop is perfect. There would be a couple of cases where there would be problems. But i am sure that these can be resolved by contacting the Manager of the store concerned.

    To sum it up my experience with Sangeetha has been great and i would still encourage people to go to their showroom. I am sure they would service you well.

    Ajay

  5. Screw the customers … Thats the principle “Devendra Telecom Basavanagudi” follow

    Dont ever buy a phone here !!!
    1. Pathetic Service … !!
    2. Costlier than other outlets…
    3. Deaf ears to customer problems….!!!

    Their principle :
    Treat Customer like a stray dog….

  6. Hi All,

    Ajay! i doubt you may be Sangeeta employee or some how related to them but till date who ever i have met on the discussion on mobile phones including my own experiance is that they sell old phone’s in new packs.

    Sangeeta’s puch line:

    Customer is King and King never bargains and after sale customer will become headless CHICKEN.

    be carefull when u buy a mobile from Sangeeta

    Regards,
    Mohd

  7. Will avoid Sangeetha like plague.

    Let them not hide behind incompetent sales people as they are Sangeetha for us. Everybody cannot interact with the top guys at the store. I have bought expensive handsets in past from them and have never been happy. So if you avoid them hopefully they will realise the power of consumers and be more respectful or go the way of Dino’s.

  8. Even I have a great experiance from Sangeetha showroom in Forum Mall. I thought of buying a Blackberry and got carried away by the offers given by Sangeetha, 1 Year replacement warranty for any physical damage to mobile, theft insurance, after that life long servicing etc.. etc… I had invested around 25K to buy one from them and I was surprised when they said I will never get a sealed pack from them if I get a PDA, I am paying 25K am, I not elligible to get a fresh piece… Still i bought it believing them.. My bad experiance started after that… right after i took the mobile in hand, i tried working on it sitting in the showroom itself and it was restarting every now and then.. The explanation given by the showroom technician was “Its a business phone and it takes some time to install all the applications, everytime you open a new application it would install it and restart the PDA”, I bought that answe aswell, but this restart became an issue every day – When it became so irritating I went back to him and he said he will get it replaced, but for that replacement, he made me sit in his showroom for more than 4 hrs, the initial 2 hours , he made me sit just to make sure it is a problem with the set. He was still not ready to accept that it was an issue with the set even after it is restarting infront of his eyes, after a couple of restart he agreed, then the issue is all the contacts in my blackberry had to be backed up before he replaces the set, and obviously I won’t have a laptop or computer handy to back it up and I was left all alone in the showroom without any help to backup the data, and the way they were dealing with me was as if I have gone to them asking for some favor… and atlast he gave me an option, he gave me 3 hrs ka time gap, If I can get the data backed up some where and go back to him, he will replace the set. I had to rush in this traffic to my home to backup the data and went back to get it replaced and got it replaced (Even this time i got a seal openned set, and the explanation which i get from them when I ask why so is, this is how it comes).. The story did not come to an end there, the third day, the “ENTER” key comes out of the phone, its a new phone, even if i pull it out it is not supposed to come out, but here it came out when i took it out of the pouch, it was so loosely packed. I again called the same sangeeetha and the response which i got was , I need to check with them, my main office,,, eh.. oh… and till this second I havent got my set replaced or repaired… I just hate looking at my set now.. I have dumped it in my store room now and I am using my old set.. I would think that i have lost my 25 K somewhere.. To be honest , Sangetha treats customers like ” Sh.t”. This is something which I understood when i was sitting inside their showroom for 4 hrs to get my set replaced… I was listening to the comments which these guys were passing, about customers who came to them with genuine issues and that too after the customers leave…. In simple words, Sangeethaa “Suc.s” I used to deal with Glabal access initially and i felt they are good compared to sangeetha…

  10. Hi I purchased Lg cookie from sangeetha mobiles kormangala and they informed me that the price is 14000 when it was only 12800 which i had enquired , after letting him know this he told that along with vat it comes upto 14000 when it should come upto 13200 , i let him know about it showed him the websites and then finally he was assured that it costed only 13200 , so unless and until you are not aware of the prices don’t go to sangeetha.

  12. Hi,

    Believe it or not, but I could finally realize that I am cheated repeatedly at this store when I went to buy 3rd phone at this store.

    Let me narrate,
    1) I bought a nokia phone
    at this store, after exchangiuy ang my old phone, I thought I got a good deal, but realized I was wrong only when I tried to register the phone and came to know that it was already registered. I thought it might have happened by mistake.

    2) I went to buy another phone at sangeetha and I was convinced by a smart salesman at this store to buy a costly and outdated sony ericcson phone which lagged basic features. I understand I should have checked these features, but believe me the smart salesman did not give me an opportunity to check the features but kept on repeating how good features the phone has. I was cheated second time.

    3) I went to exchange my sony phone, for a nokia, I had decided to completely satisfy myself before getting into any deal. Another time the smart salesman convinced me that he had given me the best price for the nokia e63 I wanted to buy. He also told me that he is giving me a model which has come to the store only a week ago. When I looked at the seal on the box, I grew suspicious and asked him to provide me another piece. The guy very cleverly told his assistant to find another piece, within no time the guy came back saying this was the last piece they had. I was pretty sure this time, I am being cheated again. I straight came out of the store and went to global access. To my surprise, the price offered for e63 was 500 bucks lesser than sangeetha. And to my wierdest surprise, I came to know that the model which Sangeetha salesman was trying to sell me was replaced with a newer one. To confirm the same I checked the date of manufacture on the box and it was very recent. I thanked god to save me from being cheated again at Sangeetha. I am now very sure that they sell old phones in a new box to the innocent customers.

    That’s why I wanted to share my experience and warn people before stepping into Sangeetha stores. You will find stores crowded because of some deal (some good exchange price say couple of hundred rupees extra) they offer to the customers and their smart sales people fool customers around with the features of the phones.

    I am very happy I didn’t buy phone from these people and my new phone got registered successfully :)

  13. Sangeetha Pioneers then Leaders now in business of Cheating people,I wish all their showrooms are smashed and their business goes to the dogs.HEAVENS SAKE NEVER GO THERE>

  14. So after reading this blog, I wanted to try them out first hand. I went to their branch
    in forum mall looking for a scratch guard for my brand new mobile (which I thankfully
    purchased elsewhere). The guy asked me for phone and I gave him.

    His boss asked him to peel off the original scratch guard already there on my newish
    mobile thinking I won’t know kannada. I immediately took it back before he
    could dig his nails in.

    So analogy is if sangeetha mobiles was a clothes store, they would rip off your jeans
    first if you ask them for a pair of jeans.

    These sales guys are plain rude and unprofessional.

  15. A big NO NO to Sangeetha Showrooms..!!
    They happen to hype their retail outlets more than the manufacturing company does..
    They first have to learn “customer and cash are king” in the growing markets. Hopeless services rendered by Sangeetha mobile outlets.. People who go by their name and words of wind think once again is what i would say!

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