Support Quality Rankings of MFs

Over the past few months, I have been in constant interaction with the support groups of some well known mutual funds. Here, I decided to summarise my experience and rank them based on their quality of response, timely resolution and turnaround time taken to resolve the problem.

1. Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund: I like the funds timely response and structured way of answering to customer queries. Their response time is generally 24 hours through email and they make an effort to call the customer in case of any discrepencies. I was pleasantly suprised to see a status note sent to my address stating "We're working on your issue and will get back".
On the cons, they seem to miss out reading some finer details in the form like request for online access etc which most of the popular mutual funds do!

Overall, I would rate the experience as positive.

2. Kotak Mutual Fund: I rate the fund higher based on their response times through email. They are the only fund to send a stamped receipt within 48 hours of receipt of your investment application. In terms of support, they generally respond within 24 hours through email.

3. Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund: Their response time through email is very low. They take 4 business days to respond via email! Inspite of the pitfalls, they seem to have minimal issues with regard to form processing. They dont provide an online investment access and advice to be registered with some brokers like ICICIdirect, HDFCsec etc if at all online access is required.

4. SBI Mutual Fund: Their response time is usually 2-3 business days. They work like a PSU in certain aspects, so you would have to face inconveniences if you need things like online access, unit transfer etc. You would need a legal transcript even to request online access! Well, I dont blame them - its just that they want to play it safe in case of any problems, but then its a hassle and additional expense at the hands of the investor.

5. Reliance Mutual Fund: Their response times through email is great. But then, there is little sync between the front office and back office. If you have scratched or corrected inputs in your form, then you could be in for trouble as the back office people often tend to take default inputs in such cases. They are not so prompt as others in terms of issuing acknowledgements, physical statements etc. But, then they do follow up with the usual sms or email if the facility is opted.

I have not reviewed other funds outside the ones discussed above. As and when I review them. I'll post them for the benefit of readers. Hope you find this useful.