Strategic Service Management

It’s that time of year again. MillwardBrownOptimor have published their Top 100 Brandz ranking, and corporate marketers are either celebrating or justifying in boardroom around the globe.

But should marketers alone take in these findings? Or does customer perception break down any barrier between Service and Marketing that may exist on Org Charts?

If you are in either Marketing or Service, I recommend you take in the “Trends” on page 10 of the report. What are its key SSM implications?

As people stay in during the recession, home shopping / home services are on the rise. Not only does that mean more deliveries, but also a greater need for repairs as users invest, for example, in coffee machines to cut down on trips to coffee houses. Do you deliver? Have you optimised your routing and scheduling? Is your parts planning reliable? Do you have the required visibility to exceed your customers’ expectations in your management of vans and technicians?

People buying equipment for home use, or putting off major new investments (which goes a long way to explaining the 22% hit suffered by the car segment), opens up an opportunity for service parts pricing. How are you positioned to take advantage of it?

Apple grew 14%; BlackBerry 100%. Where once we had phones, now we have… handheld life organisers. This trend is supported by growth in network brands: Vodafone is up by 46%, AT&T by 67%, O2 by 36%. We are increasingly connected, which (when managed…) benefits our efficiency (in and out of the office). But it also means our expectations rise. Why can’t a delivery be scheduled more accurately? Why can’t a tech turn up with the right part? We are all more aware of technology’s potential – and accept no excuses for failure to leverage it.

Such increased technical sophistication also means we are often happy to fix minor problems ourselves – a scenario that expedites repair time and dramatically reduces costs for all involved. Do you have the technology to remotely support your customers?

At Servigistics, we have long underlined product commoditisation. Branding is a critical path to differentiation. Is it achieved through good marketing? Is it achieved through good service?

Let’s look at it this way: I would challenge anybody to achieve differentiation in 2009 without good marketing or good service. Which is why SSM goes beyond managing your Service operation, and encompasses your entire business. And, in your quest to win and retain customers, you create fictitious barriers between Service and Marketing at your peril.

best,

g.o.s.

Make it, Sell it, Service it

By Giacomo Squintani, Marketing Manager EMEA, Servigistics

If you’re struggling as a manufacturer in the current climate (or if you want to avoid membership in this club), there is an article out there that is well worth your time.

It may well be that you’ve already caught “Britain’s Lonely High-Flyer” in this week’s “The Economist” - or maybe its introductory piece, “What Rolls-Royce Can Teach Britain”. Both articles look at Rolls-Royce, and how “the way in which it has melded technology and service” offers “much to suggest that it will weather an economic downturn better than its rivals”.

 ”The China Effect” has relegated Britain’s share of world merchandise exports to just over 3% - yet the UK ranks second for services. And, whereas Rolls-Royce generated only 20% of turnover through aftermarket in 1981, and 40% in 2001, post-sales now contributes to the majority of the group’s revenue.

 Can everybody be a Rolls-Royce? Can everybody implement strategies based on “adding value through the provision of product-related services”? Well, maybe not everybody can maintain products for decades… I don’t expect to be using the same digital camera in 2029, downturn or no downturn. But the principle is transferable - and we can all learn from the leaders. After all, “the success of Rolls-Royce suggests that the world will not be neatly divided into firms (or countries) that make things and those that sell services. Flying high depends on being able to do both”.

You know you hate it.

You know you also feel sorry for that guy.

That guy.

I could write about the recession, but that guy offers a bit of hope amidst the gloom and doom of today’s headlines.

What guy? That pesky sales guy. Calling during your dinner. Calling on your cell phone [how did he get that number?] Calling when….

Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s just annoying that he calls. And when you say “I’m not interested” and slam down the phone, you know you feel bad. Think of how that guy feels hearing that more than 50 times a day. Who’d want to be that guy?

Truth is, we’re all that guy once in awhile. We don’t need to pick up a phone and cold call, but we all must play salesman for a season. ‘Oh not me, I’m an accountant’ you may be saying, or ‘No way, I’m in IT’.

Those silos are gone. And in this cash-strapped, credit poor, paranoid economy, that’s good news. As more and more doors are slammed in salesmen’s faces, businesses are going to need a contingency plan – or a back door.

According to James Alexander of Alexander Consulting, that back door is a customer’s trusted advisor, or his service technician. Think about it– a field technician can actually visit a client’s home or business and assess not only the current problem, but can sell a system upgrade or even additional services – something to which the front-end salesperson couldn’t access.

It’s similar to automobile repair. You take your car in for a grease, oil and filter, but then you find out your brake pad are about to go. So what’s a customer to do? Spend more money on brake pads. Or the tires need to be replaced. Or the transmission flushed. Or whatever else. That’s a way to make money on service while delivering excellent service.

The Field Technician enters a customer’s business or home to repair a problem, but with a little training, he’ll learn how to assess a situation for a new service or product sale. Think of Best Buy’s service person visiting a customer to repair a desktop computer, and the service person could potentially sell not only a printer/fax machine, but also a plasma screen television and surround sound. Or maybe he could sell a lease on an entire networked computer system.

Apply the same concept to B2B. It may be difficult for your salesperson to access an existing client who has been ordered to freeze all spending, but the field technician will pay a visit and see what the real needs are –and, in fact, he may be able to sell something that could save your client a bundle of money. This happens all the time with complex products and systems where the end user may not be maximizing its performance due to a missing piece or an outdated system/product. It gets complicated, so bring in the trusted advisor.

At least the trusted advisor or field tech will never have to be that guy all the time, but he sure can play his part in adding to the bottom line.