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R.Y. Narayanan

Coimbatore , March 8

ANNUAL Maintenance Contracts (AMCs) for various services are a great way to save oneself the bother of maintaining valuable white goods and electronic items, such as TVs, ACs and computers. Today, even automobile dealers offer such services to their customers. But an AMC for bathrooms?

The idea may seem ridiculous, but the job isn't as simple as it sounds. It requires expertise in various fields — plumbing, electrical work, tile-laying — and getting `experts' together for repair work can be harrying.

However, EID Parry (India) Ltd, market leader in the sanitaryware sector, has introduced the concept of AMCs for bathrooms to provide customers with a hassle-free experience. It has opened Customer Care Centres (CCCs) in nearly a dozen cities in the country. That in Chennai, the CCC handles nearly 500 calls a month is an indication of the growing popularity of this experiment.

According to Mr K.A. Muthuvel, Manager (Customer Care), and Mr Sambasivam Srinivas, Regional Sales Manager (South), Parryware, the company offers customised solutions and services ranging from designing a bathroom to its annual maintenance. The core team of each CCC comprises factory-trained plumbers, civil designers and supervisors. While customers have the option of choosing brands other than Parryware for products that the company does not have, all other needs would be met by Parryware products alone.

The officials said the company had opened CCCs in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Lucknow, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kochi; Coimbatore joined the list last week.

Coimbatore was of particular importance to the company, because next to Chennai, the textile city had the highest potential in the State on account of industrial development, the presence of a large number of educational institutions and individuals with high disposable incomes, the officials said.

Mr Muthuvel said Parryware was making a conscious shift from being a service provider to an "experience provider." It aims to become a one-stop shop for an entire range of services from designing a bathroom to attending to repair calls, offering "total bathroom solutions." He said the problem people often faced in dealing with bathroom repairs was in finding people with the right skills; his company had sought to bridge this vacuum by bringing together people with expertise in different areas, such as plumbing, electrical work, civil work, etc.

The company charges Rs 300 per year per bathroom under the AMC and offers special rates for housing societies, apartment complexes, etc.

More Stories on : Strategy | Interiors & Homes | Tamil Nadu

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Maintenance contracts for bathrooms!

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