Blogs

Maximising After Sales Service Satisfaction: The Role of Service Infrastructure

Published :Feb 2023

In business, working capital is like fuel for a vehicle. Picture setting off on a road trip with friends or family, only to find yourself stranded because you ran out of gas. Now, imagine that same scenario at a much larger scale: a major company stalled because it lacks the cash to keep operations going. The impact is huge, disrupting not only the business but also affecting employees, suppliers, and even customers who rely on it.

PEOPLE:People in the frontend and the backend in service are the most important element of any company’s service infrastructure. Service leadership, which many times is underestimated in the engineering equipment industry, is very critical and has less to do with technical knowledge and is more to do with customer care and customer relationship management. Managing the service delivery team – employing, developing, and retaining – is vital to provide positive customer experience.

PRESENCE: Being physically close to customer is a big advantage to both the customer and the service provider. Planning and placing service facilities and service engineers with in close reach of one’s installed base improves the response time and cost efficiency. By having the same team to handle a customer helps in improving customer ownership within the organisation. Being near the installed base, allows the Service Engineers reduce their travel time and return to their home base every evening – a perfect work life balance.

PROCESS: An efficient and well-structured planning and delivery is crucial for customer satisfaction. This will secure a reliable and predictable service delivery which improves the business performance and helps you successfully deliver the promises made.

KNOWLEDGE: Service is putting in to practice the knowledge base of your company and this is a major asset of any service organisation. It is the accumulated knowledge the organisation has about the products, installed base, customers, and the service history. In many organisations, this knowledge is hidden in the excel files of service engineers and is lost when people change. Debriefing of service engineers after every service and documenting the same is very critical, since service reports many times do not capture the entire picture. In essence knowledge management is very critical to the survival of the service business. The engineering equipment industry can take a leaf out of the medical profession, where the patient information is well captured in medical transcription, which forms the knowledge base of the medical services.

TECHNOLOGY: Technology and Automation is inevitable for efficient service deployment, and the question is how much can service delivery automate? A Gartner report of 2022 predicts that 70% of the organisations are gearing up to implement infrastructure automation by 2025.

Connectivity and AI have a big impact on the way service is delivered today. Remote monitoring, maintenance and operational analytics is making possible for service providers to evaluate equipment performance, review the issues and take corrective actions before an equipment failure.

Augmented reality, Virtual reality and Mixed reality technologies are being used today for efficient service delivery. With real-time visibility, the after-sales service delivery teams can monitor events as they are happening. Remote assistance also increases time efficiency by creating Omni-channel support and helps in reducing friction in the service experience.

WIPRO, a leading technology company says, “Connected assets will lead the manufacturing of tomorrow”. Wipro’s cloud based IoT platform helps connect over 10,000 JCB construction equipment in India to remotely monitor the health and performance of the assets in the field.

Alfa Laval the Swedish engineering MNC has successfully adopted remote assistance / guidance to its customers in equipment trouble shooting and servicing.

PARTNERS: Service is a resource intensive business activity and managing the large resources efficiently is the key challenge for service leadership. With increasing expectations from customers on service, it is practically impossible to deliver high quality service in cost efficient manner without partners.

Hence, competent service partners who are equipped to respond quickly and provide quality service are an essential element in the service infrastructure.

Service partners bring the required skills, resources, and knowledge to support the business’ existing service offerings. Here are three ways how service partners boost a business’ service infrastructure:

• Capacity increment: Service providers increase the capacity of the business to handle more customers with their after sales requirements. They deliver quality service by expanding their reach and also supplement with additional resources like technology and remote manpower. 
• Expertise provision: Service partners have specialised knowledge that improves the service offering. They help businesses react quickly, adapt to new technologies and streamline operations. 
• Improves flexibility and customer experience: With service partners, customers get services as per their exact requirements, irrespective of the location. This not only helps better customer experience but also helps the business stay ahead of the competition by delivering better-than-usual services.

SERVICE CULTURE: Service culture is the deciding factor in delivering quality service and is a unique aspect – one may call it DNA of the organisation - which cannot be replicated by competition.

The set of beliefs, values and practices adopted by an organisation plays a role in determining the organisation’s success. Having a positive service culture with a strong team creates a productive, supporting, and engaging work environment for employees. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Organisations that invest in the development and maintenance of a strong service culture reap the benefits of reduced staff turnover, reduced costs, higher efficiency, and enhanced profits. To foster a culture of service excellence, organisations must focus on providing regular training and support, transparent communication, and empowering employees to keep providing incredible customer service by responding to customer needs promptly and showcasing the willingness to move the extra mile to fulfil customer’s needs – irrespective of their geographical location.

For more discussions on consultation on this topic, please connect with anantha.padmanabhan@camsconsulting.in / www.camsconsulting.in