Cisco-Linksys taking multiple way... to serve customers better!
June 2010 Edition
In February 2009 Cisco tied with Accel to establish its first Linksys by Cisco Exchange Center in India across 8 cities directly and 30 cities through hub and spoke model. As part of this partnership, Cisco announced the launch of 8 new centres across 8 new locations going live from April 2010 onwards. Suresh Balasubramanian, National sales Director, Cisco Consumer Products spoke to VARIndia, following are the excerpts...
Posted on -
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
By VARIndia Correspondent
With time Linksys, the consumer product brand of Cisco, has become a known name in the SoHo segment. Suresh Balasubramanian, National sales Director, Cisco Consumer Products, shares that the setting up of their first exchange centres was a major step the company took towards their infrastructure development. These exchange centres were based out of cities which were more influential in terms of manpower and infrastructure. "Specifically, we opened up service centres in Goa, Indore, Surat, Nagpur, Baroda, Cochin, Trivandrum and Jaipur. Which means we have opened them mostly in tier II or tier III cities," he added. With the establishment of the Exchange Center, Cisco aims to provide greater convenience and time savings for end customers who require a product exchange service, thus enhancing the Cisco customer service offering.
"If you are a consumer of a Cisco product, and you are facing problem with the consumer product, these are the centres that one can go to, to get products replaced or exchanged," he shares. Suresh Balasubramanian National Sales Director, Cisco.
These exchange centres are commissioned through Cisco's partners and not by the company. "We have partnered with Accel Frontline to look into the functioning of these support centres. We have an extensive network of service and exchange centres all across the country. We have at present 16 centres in the country, including the new ones commissioned a few days back," adds Balasubramanian. Since Accel Frontline couldn't provide telephonic or product support, Cisco has an option of 24*7*365 toll free number service, which the customer can call any time of the day. During this telephonic support, the customer will be given a replacement number and can go to the exchange centre to get it replaced. In places where they don't have an exchange centre, they have set up collection centre. The customer can take the faulty router to these collections centers along with the given replacement number. The other option available to the customers is to approach the partners and retailers from where they have bought it and get the product replaced. Cisco is initially consolidating its business in the tier II and III cities and refraining from setting business all at one go across the nation. "We want to make sure that we have the basic infrastructure in place, in terms of manpower and good partners. So when it comes to those locations, where we don't have our exchange centres, we work through our dedicated partners and distributors. They look after the exchange of these products and any kind of assistance that our customers require." He further shares that the company is thinking of extending their presence to more cities and towns but doing that in a more phased manner. Though they don't have a specific time line or targeted number for that but they have a generic goal of coming up with more such centres. Cisco is busy creating this unique network infrastructure which would offer the consumers a special piece-meal. "We are seeking to make the experience of our customers even better," Balasubramanian sums up succinctly.
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