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Technical
customer service (after sales service) – a
profitable business
The past ten years have seen the importance of „traditional“
after sales service change dramatically. Most companies
manufacturing or selling industrial goods now see
their service business as a highly significant factor
in their businesses’ long-term success.
The revenues that come from „customer service“
have become an important part of companies’
total revenues. There is also increasing recognition
that customer service plays an instrumental role
in customer relations, and that it should be systematically
employed to secure and even increase the future
profitability of businesses.
It is safe to assume that technical product service
in all its forms will gain in importance in the
coming years.
The question is: How does your company shape up
in technical customer service? Is it among the „best
in class“ in this area? Is there potential
there that could be realised and turned into extra
revenue? back
Technical
customer service as a „product“
Treating technical services as „products“
opens up a whole host of possibilities for achieving
a sustainable increase in your company’s revenues.
For example, by focusing your service organisation
specifically on market needs; by identifying existing
potential in current market segments; by offering
add-on services; and by branching out into new market
segments. Of course, every opportunity is also a
challenge, and makes extra demands on your service
organisation, especially on the senior staff.
Another approach to long-term strategic planning
of your service organisation is to take advantage
of the synergies existing between sales and technical
after sales units. Getting these two units to closely
co-operate has a lot of additional advantages.
Ongoing advances in information technology (IT)
continue to open up new possibilities for increasing
productivity and service quality, e.g. by allowing
more efficient deployment of field engineers, through
process optimisation, and by improving communication
with customers. On the other hand, the selection
and introduction of suitable IT tools consumes a
considerable amount of time and money. Efficient
project management can make a very significant contribution
to reducing both.
Your service personnel, in house and in the field,
are among your most valuable assets. Besides being
responsible for the day-to-day business, they are
also entrusted with successfully introducing projects
and supervising their progress. Recruiting personnel,
developing their potential and keeping them motivated,
consequently become key factors in your projects’
success.
The many years of international experience and practice
that we bring to your projects, including management
at all levels of technical after sales service,
are your guarantee of professional support and lasting
benefit. back
Marketing
of industrial goods
To successfully offer technical after sales service
you must, of course, first be successful at selling
your products in the marketplace. In other words,
the more successful your sales engineers are at
their job, the better the prospects will be for
your customer service organisation.
The positioning of your company and its products
in the marketplace can depend quite considerably
upon the technical service you can offer your customers
and on how you communicate the value of this service
to your markets.
The marketing instruments adopted for your products
and customer service should ideally complement each
other and together have a higher impact than they
would separately. Synergies will then be used to
maximum effect.
A question often asked is: What form should „sales“
and „technical after sales service“
preferably have? The answer usually depends on how
much the two processes have in common.
Working for many years in international sales, involving
technical products as well as technical after sales
service, we have had the opportunity to see first
hand which solutions are best for which projects.
This work was undertaken in major markets that included
Switzerland, Germany, Scandinavia, China (2 ½
years spent in the country) and other parts of Asia. back |
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