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Kumtel Luxell started operation in Turkey in 1972 and ever since then, their main aim is to produce high quality, durable, safe and yet affordable products for people. With over 40 years’ experience in the business, their focus is to continue on providing solutions on customers’ needs. Today, they export their products to over 120 countries and recently, they opened a full production factory in Ethiopia, East Africa. Few months ago they decided to invest in Nigeria, an idea that led them to build an SM Line in Lagos-Nigeria. In a brief interview with the Managing Director of Kumtel Luxell Nigeria Limited, Buildace Magazine learnt that the company’s primary objective is to provide high quality solutions to human needs in the area of kitchen appliances.
Enjoy the excerpt of the interview.
WHAT SOLUTION DO YOU PROVIDE?
We provide a basic kitchen solution which includes building kitchen table tops, kitchen appliances such as oven, gas cooker, and as well as the extractors. And we provide high quality products to our customers which are user friendly, safe and very affordable. We are here to create a big impact in the Nigerian market by providing top notch products. We want people to understand the value of their money by coming to the knowledge that they don’t have to spend a lot of money to buy quality products.
HOW USEFUL ARE YOUR PRODUCTS IN A COUNTRY WITH POWER DEFICIT?
Our main aim is to reach everybody not targeting the rich population. That’s why in terms of variety, we have different kinds of products. So we are aware of the electricity problem in Nigeria that’s why we have the gas cooker, oven, gas stoves and electric stoves as well. As you know, gas doesn’t use electricity; as soon as the gas is available it’s ready to use. For the purpose of electricity problems, most of our products are a+ or a + +. That’s why they are very low energy consumption products or need very little energy to operate. Those small generators that most people are using are even enough to power our products because most of our oven is electrical due to safety reasons and to operate that oven all you need is 0.6 KVA which is more than enough for the small size or medium generators.
HOW DO YOU INTEND TO GO ABOUT THE TYPICAL NIGERIAN KITCHEN STYLE?
First we need to understand the needs of a typical Nigerian in this category. Since we are very new in Nigeria, I will say we are still learning and in time, we will have a better understanding of what people really need and their demands. But so far we have done some few awareness and the most demanding things from the people were big size stoves and oven but at the same time we were aware or have seen some houses of which usually kitchen are always the smallest part of the house and I was thinking why would people want 75 or 90cm sizes of stoves and oven? Then I did some research and realized that the Nigerian kind of family is relatively more crowded when compared to European families, because a typical European family comprises the father, mother and the child until the child becomes 18 years of age when he/she leaves the house. So I came to understand that the Nigerian family structure is similar to the Turkish family structure where we have more family members living together, then it started to make sense why people here were asking for big size kitchen appliances.
To match with the demands we decided to bring products of different sizes hence our aim is to reach everybody, we have to meet every demand. That’s why with an oven and stoves, we have 60 – 75cms and for the gas we have 90cms. We also have 60-75 and 90cms of extractors and now we have 75 and 90cms of hoods available as well.
DO YOU HAVE STOVES THAT USES KEROSENE?
Kerosene no! We don’t because we don’t want to play with our safety standard. If something or a major accident happens to the people using such products because of my products, how am I going to explain that or sleep that night? For safety purposes we don’t want to accept any error because we know that kerosene is highly inflammable.
TELL US ABOUT THE SECURITY LEVEL OF YOUR PRODUCTS
All our products including the ovens and gas cookers are very safe. In our stoves and ovens we have safety devices installed in each products, it’s a magnet like safety sensor that detect wetness or gas leakage and shot the gas off automatically and solve the problem first and also all our gas cookers are installed with gas valves that adjust the amount of gas releases into the burner cap. Because of the expensive nature of gas, we installed that for your safety and also to help economize your gas usage. Unlike other products that have a direct pipe going under the burner cap which has more regulation and adjustment into the amount of gas it releases. Our products are not like that, we installed gas valves that adjust the amount of gas that has to be released in seconds and when the user is using it the stove itself does not get exposed to a lot of gas at once so that is very important.
We also have this child safety system with the knobs of our gas cookers, though they all have alternative ignition but you have to press and turn to activate the ignition and when you turn it half way it activate and release the gas and then you have to hold for 5 seconds its only after that the cooker burns can be filled. Even if a child comes into the kitchen and turns the knobs or plays with it, for example children of a very little or tender age it’s not possible for them to turn it on and play with fire.
WHY SHOULD I CHOOSE YOUR PRODUCT AHEAD OF OTHER PRODUCTS IN THE MARKET?
It’s all about solutions. For example, let’s take a look at the car you drive, you don’t know about the mechanical aspect of it but you drive the car because it’s easy and friendly. All you have to do is turn on the engine and drive, then the break and other things. So I will say something similar to the car example that I just gave. Our products are user friendly and the customers don’t need to do anything extra to enjoy or benefit from the extra features. They will still be using just like what they have been using with the extras features that comes with it.
ARE YOUR PRODUCTS COST EFFICIENCY?
Most of our products are a, a+ and a + + so they are cost efficient and environmentally friendly too. Creating a smart home has become a necessity in other countries and what we want to do is to push Nigeria up to that standard as well. So an extractor is very important in the kitchen and ours are very affordable because when you cook in the kitchen, especially when you fry something the whole place becomes stuffy and smelly so the extractor takes care of that for you. With our extractor you will always have fresh air in your kitchen; we have also put plans in place to train our distributors to be able to easily install our products for the end users.
DO YOU PROVIDE ADVICE ON KITCHEN DESIGN AND SPACE MANAGEMENT?
We do have a sister company that produces kitchen cabinets, this means that we can even work with the interior designer companies and architectural firms to decide or provide kitchen solutions. Like what kind of kitchen appliances that will be more useful in different building designs and settings, this includes the small, medium and the bigger sizes. We also provide advice in terms of creating kitchen spaces, like how to position the kitchen cabinets for space management.
WHAT IS THE WARRANTY PERIOD OF YOUR PRODUCTS AND HOW DO YOU RESPOND TO CUSTOMER COMPLAIN?
All our products come with a two years warranty. And if there is any factory deficit or problem caused by the factory, we don’t even bother repairing the product, we completely change the product and that’s what makes us different from others in the market. In terms of spare parts, each shipment directly from our factory comes with 2% more spare parts and it’s made available to our customers through our distributors who will get in touch with us should the need arise. With that, we have earned the full trust of our customers.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME SIR!
You are welcome Buildace Magazine.
