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The old debate of vendors needing to set up some sort of manufacturing or repair facility in India-the fastest growing mobile market in the world today-arises once again

In the last financial year, Nokia became the largest MNC operating in India, a domain held by old names like HLL and Pepsi. And, the Nokia announcement last month that it will replace the faulty BL-5C batteries manufactured by Matsushita Battery of Japan, was again path breaking for India. The company is truly keeping up with international standards in customer care. I am not aware of any Indian company till date that has had the courage or honesty to inform customers that its product was faulty, and that it would take them back. And, we all know that the quality of products available in India is definitely not the best in the world.

In fact, Nokia is going a step ahead, and is not going to wait for customers to come to their outlets. The company has got courier companies to send battery replacements to customers' homes within ten days of lodging a complaint.

While all this has been happening, I think in the end Nokia will actually gain. Though not confirmed so far, but company officials have said that handset sales have not been affected. And I can say with a lot of confidence that consumer respect and trust for the company have gone up manifold. I am very sure that in the long run this will stand in good stead, and result in even better sales for Nokia.

As Nokia becomes the biggest MNC in India, in terms of volume of business, it also has a unique opportunity to bring about a big shift in the way customer care is defined and delivered in India. Even the established MNCs in India were not following the same customer care practices they had in other parts of the world. Other companies can claim of big things they are doing as part of their CSR (corporate social responsibility), but if the Nokia example can make even a small change in attitude, it will be a big contribution.

There are quite a few handset vendors that are already established in the business, and many new ones coming up. The lesser said about customer care the better. With bundling catching on, poor customer care will not just impact the vendor, but the operator also. Operators have a lot of catching up to do on customer care. One hopes that what Nokia did, will set a new trend.

I am impressed with the handling of the situation in this hour crisis. But my basic view that vendors like Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson need to cover a lot of ground does not change. I am not ready to accept that Nokia can handle such a big crisis, but during normal times, there are so many of its consumers who have to run from pillar to post, and yet get very poor customer service.

ibrahima@cybermedia.co.in