Background

Collaboration with IFB, R&D Team

Unlike a typical internship, this experience involved hands-on work on an actual industry project. As part of my Graduation project, I worked on a sponsored project, collaborating with the design team in the R&D office of IFB, alongside company employees.

Why this Project ?

To Reduce dependancy on ‘Exchange and Save’ offer

The organisation wanted to reduce their dependancy on ‘Exchange and Save’ offer for their old customers, also minimising collection of waste through this procedure.

IFB products are of very premium quality and considered as one of best home appliance products but their service was as bad as good their product was.

That's when the vision was made to improve the service quality for better product longevity.

Problem

Decreasing Brand Value due to bad service quality

Despite IFB’s high product quality, customer service was a critical pain point. Customers regularly faced:

• Delays in complaint resolution and spare part delivery
• Lack of communication and transparency
• Negative interactions with technicians

This eroded trust and impacted the brand’s perceived value in the market.

Pilot Research

..because the problem space was too big.

‘Bad’ and ‘Pathetic’ is how service is associated

A brief research study around four areas was conducted and it was found that there was issue in service standards which is not properly defined or communicated to the customer. Customer feels helpless because of uncertainty and varied information it receives.

Four Areas : Perception in Organisation, Insights from Service Personnels, E-commerce Reviews, Telephonic Calls to Customers.

Found :

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“The challenge was broad, systemic, and complex—touching multiple stakeholders and real-time service operations. At times, it felt beyond the scope of design. But that’s what made it worth pursuing”.

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Opportunity

A service system is only as strong as the alignment between its people, processes, and promises.

By shifting from a reactive service culture to one grounded in proactive, standardised, and user-centered delivery, companies can rebuild trust and reduce customer churn.

1. Equip frontline staff with full-cycle service knowledge and empower them with decision-making frameworks
2. Use social listening reports & customer reviews as feedback to keep improving the service.
3. Build transparent and consistent communication protocols that manage expectations from first contact to resolution.

Why is it Valuable :

• In the short term, organisation can reduce the cost of exchanging/managing old products by preventing service failures rather than reacting to them.
• In the long run, this builds operational consistency, improves brand perception, and fosters employee alignment.