The move is part of the new customer service initiatives announced by the company, for which it has earmarked Rs 3 crore in the first year. It has also unveiled a new service logo, with the slogan `Care beyond Compare.' Cees van Mechelen, general manager, service, Philips Asia Pacific, says, ``With the launch of this brand new service identity, Philips India has embraced the global policy of customer delight. The new logo, which appears like a pair of embracing arms, translates into care, assurance, trust and confidence.''

Terming the appointment of an ombudsman as an act of courage, commitment and conviction, Rajeev Karwal, senior vice-president, Philips India, said, ``The appointment of ombudsman is an expression of our commitment to the customer. It is a move aimed at making service more transparent, and promoting customer care instead of just products.''

The ombudsman, who will hold independent office, will be based in Mumbai, and will submit quarterly reports for the company's internal consumption. Backing the ombudsman is a new system called ``e-care''. The facility offers auto-escalation of customer complaints along the corporate hierarchy: if a customer complaint is not addressed within 48 hours it automatically goes to the next level in the management hierarchy. After seven days, the complaint will automatically be routed to the ombudsman.

Expressing his happiness at the appointment, Raman, who has been an active consumer rights activist, and currently runs a vertical portal on consumer durables, globalwonders.com, said, ``This is an excellent idea, but ideally the ombudsman should cover the entire industry and not one company alone. My decisions as ombudsman will be binding on the company.''

In other moves, the company also launched a mobile workshop, which is `more like a mini-operation theatre', equipped with spares and trained technicians to provide instant repairs. Each van costs Rs 1.2 lakh when operational, and can cover 1,000 km. The company plans to have 50 on the road by October, 2000.

With 350 service centres, Philips already has the largest service network. It will monitor after-sale services through self-evaluation procedures like Cosam (customer satisfaction measurement), Trasam (trade satisfaction measurement) and Sesam (service satisfaction). A pilot study to track trade satisfaction is currently on in Pune. This will be backed up with the setting up of competence centres to keep pace with technology and upgrade service partners and engineers. The first Competence Centre will be opened in Chennai on August 3, to be followed up with centres one in each region.

The company intends to computerise all its service centres by December 2000, making it possible to register complaints online. Special software (Compair and Searchman) will be used for fault diagnosis, besides ordering spares, tracking quality and maintaining database of consumers. Customer Relation Centres will also be set up at 19 locations to build healthy relationships with customers.

Other plans on the anvil: A toll-free number for complaints and `instant customer satisfaction' where the satisfaction index of a service centre will be tracked automatically with customers registering satisfaction levels by punching red/green buttons that will be set up at service centres by early next year.