Traditionally considered as a liability, electronics appliances vendors need to change that mindset to turn after sales service as a multi-billion dollar opportunity

With its rising economy and over a billion plus population, India is constantly adding up more electric and electronic appliances to its households. As per a recent study there are more than 2.4 billion devices including home and office appliances, smartphones, and other electronics in Indian homes and offices at various stages of their life cycle. These devices and their users need regular services which offers a gold mine for after-sales service providers.

As far as market opportunity is concerned, most electronics brands spend at least two-third of their marketing budget on after sales, and multiple study says, the Indian after-sales market is at present a $4 billion opportunity whereas the global market is pegged at $40 billion.

Traditionally the vendors of such electronic devices considered offering after-sales service as a liability but slowly they started realizing that devices these days do not offer much difference in terms product quality and features, what can make them stand alone in the market is the kind of experience they offer to their customers. 

Here we bring some notable after-sales service providers that are working their hearts out to change the after-market dynamics of the country.

HCL
HCL Care, the Support and Service division has one of the largest and most extensive service networks across the country and provides end to end support services across product categories – Laptop, Desktop, Tablet, Mobile Phones, Home Appliances and other Consumer Electronics & Durables. With proven track record of more than a decade of providing integrated end to end service support to leading brands, such as HCL, Philips, Lenovo, BlackBerry, Samsung, Bajaj, Emerson, Nokia, Dell etc, HCL Care has firmly established itself as the leader in after sales service & support of consumer electronics products. HCL Care specializes in providing tailored solution to its clients across the service value chain – Call Center Support, Walk-In Service Centers, Supply Chain Management and Repair Factory. With an aim to achieve 100% district coverage across India, we continue to grow our service network extensively across India and provide the best in class services to all our esteemed customers.

HCL has a remarkable tradition of service excellence span over decades. HCL has been a preferred choice of partner for marquee brands like HCL, Philips, Lenovo, BlackBerry, Samsung, Nokia, OBI, Oneplus, Xiaomi etc. We have served our customers with an immense sense of commitment and we would like to find a similar commitment in our partners.
HCL has tied up with leading OEM players in digital products to offer after sales warranty service support across India. We provide support on wide array of products – Mobile Phones, Smart Phones, Tablets, Laptop, Desktop, Printers, TV and other consumer electronics & lifestyle products.

TVS Electronics
TVS Electronics, from the TVS Group, is one more player in the after sales market. However, unlike others, TVS Electronics does not limit itself to just services of the products, rather it repairs as well as sells the refurbished products as well. Some of its refurbished products offer warranty of equal duration as the new product.

Some of the key services that TVS Electronics offers include repair services, refurbishment services, managed services, e-auction services and extended warranty plans.

From a product perspective, the company offers services for all sort of IT products including PCs and laptops, printers etc, telecom products including smartphones and feature phones, CCTVs, ATMs and PoS machines.

Some of its major clients include HTC, Lava, Micromax, Samsung, Xiaomi, Dell, Hitachi and NCR.

Servify
This is a Mumbai based startup founded in 2015 and offers app-based after sales services to varied brands. Within just three years the company could onboard more than 45 top brands and claims to have 740 million devices on its platform and is supported by over 6000 service centers across the country. The company is doing a monthly business of around Rs 10 crore.
Some of the brands Servify serve include Apple, OnePlus, Xiaomi in smartphones, Godrej, Panasonic in home appliances and Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea in telecom services.

Its offline retail partners are Croma, Reliance Digital and Sangeetha Mobiles, online eretailers like Amazon and PayTm Mall, distribution partners like Redington, Ingram and HCL. The company has also partnered with insurance service providers like HDFC Ergo, Acko and AmTrust to offer insurance products to its customers.

B2X
B2X is a Munich, Germany based aftermarket player and primarily serves the tier-1 IT and communications brands. Some of the prominent names in its customer list include Apple, Samsung, OnePlus, Lenovo, Google, Microsoft,  Motorola, Xiaomi and Sony.

The company’s India business supports three neighbouring countries – Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. The company has 237 frontend service locations and 12 backend repair centers. The firm employs around 900 employees to support these four markets. In these markets B2X serves customers of Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and Xiaomi.
B2X operates 27 Apple authorized service centers across India where people using Apple products receive immediate help – from software support and device diagnosis to hardware repair services for in-warranty and out-of-warranty issues.

The entire after-sales service process of B2X is automated through the B2X SMARTCARE Technology platform. B2X’s SMARTANALYTICS provides real-time visibility on all service interactions.

IQor
iQor is one of the world’s biggest after market service providers. The company entered Indian space in 2015 and had announced to invest Rs 1300 crore over a period of 3 years time and create employment for more than 20,000 people. At present the firm has more than 5000 people in India and a majority of them are located in the company contact center in Noida.
iQor perhaps is the only company in India to offer end to end aftermarket services to its customers. The company boasts of clientele including Oracle, Cisco, Ericsson and Apple besides almost all the handset brands including Indian smartphone players like Micromax, Karbonn and Lava.

Redington
Redington is one more big name in Indian after sales services market. It has set up hardware support service centres across the country with  77 owned service centres, supported by a certified franchisee network of 266 service partners, Redington provides the full spectrum of warranty and post-warranty services including solution design and consulting, technical helpdesk, field engineering support, parts warehousing, Forward and Reverse logistics, Imports and -re-exports, and asset recovery . All these centres run on a robust CRM that enable us to tightly manage the end-to-end service life cycle and create a great customer experience.

The company serves some premium customers including Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, Lenovo, Fujitsu, Apple, Motorola, Huawei, Microsoft, Ricoh, Logitech, Konica among others – several of them for a decade or more – ample testimony to the consistent value delivered by our Service team, enabling these brands live up to their commitment of providing world class service to their customers across the Indian sub-continent. 

Aforeserve 
Aforeserve is one more company offering after sales services to multiple products across verticals. This Noida based firm perhaps has the widest range of products to serve – from PCs, tablets, smartphones, scanners, printers, servers, networking switches, routers, STBs, ATMs and VSAT.

Some of its major customers include HPE, IBM, Dimension Data, HP, Wipro, Lenovo, RIL, Tyco, Emerson, Micromax and Tata Sky.

Headquartered at Noida, the Company works closely with customers to implement tailored service solutions through an extensive, pan India support network of service centers in 45 major cities and resident engineers across 182 regional towns.

Supported by a team of over 2600 engineers, technicians and service executives, Aforeserve handles more than 55000 service calls every month, combining industry experience with superior repair capabilities and standardized support practices to assist individual and small-scale establishments as well as complex IT environments in large organizations to install, maintain, refurbish and dispose their ICT assets in a cost-effective, efficient and viable manner.

inTarvo
InTarvo, based in Noida, also offers after sales service for many brands and multiple products including IT, telecom, VSAT and banking. Besides after sales service, the firm also offers repair and refurbishment services, e-waste management and disposal services. The company is 18 year old and has a huge facility in Noida – 1,22,000 square feet. Besides it has 200 more collection and fulfilment centers across the country.

UrbanClap
This is a new age service model built by this startup three years back. The company, in an innovative model, has partnered with local mechanics and repair shops to offer after sales service to almost every electronics appliance including smartphones, ACs, TVs, washing machines and refrigerators.

Their business model was so successful and the market opportunity was so huge that it attracted investors like former Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata. The other investors include VY Capital, Bessemer Ventures, SAIF Partners and Accel Partners.

The company claims to have over 100000 professionals on board and present in 8 cities with more than 30 million customers.

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