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.

By Giacomo Squintani, Marketing Manager EMEA, Servigistics

The good news is… looks like I’m not alone.

The bad news is…

Well, come on – people shouldn’t be dreaming dreams in 140 characters, or dream of the new iPhone hardware as they ponder whether to splash out or not. That’s not what the resting hours are for.

This is what happens to us when we overdose on technology. It happens to all of us, at some point – and the effects are clear to see. Because, fundamentally, we are hunter/gatherers, not e-mailers or twitterers. And, at least in our sleep, we should revert to our fundamental nature.

Our fundamental nature… are there aspects of it that we may want to dust off for the workplace? Or would that simply go against centuries of evolution theory?

Some of the most successful sales people I’ve worked with don’t appear to have embraced the great technological revolution. Their world doesn’t appear to move any faster now than it did five, ten years ago; they still listen and observe, like old-fashioned hunters. But wise hunters, who know that it will be easier to gather the prey when it approaches them rather than to chase it round in circles. (And they have embraced the good technology bits, by the way – just not the distractions.)

In a world where the divide between sales and service is increasingly blurred, similar key considerations apply. Sure, techs have to be more proactive. But, in getting the job done, they should never jeopardise the possibility to take in the environment around them, and consider how they may turn it to their advantage.

If today we live in the iWorld, then the ‘i’ can often be seen as standing for ‘instant’. And when great service is instant, everybody is happy – especially the customer. But, when a compromise has to be made between great service and instant service… compromise on quality at your peril. And, once you’ve got job done as quickly as possible, to keep your customers happy – why miss out on an opportunity to spend five minutes finding out what’s going on at a site? Why not try and gather further info that will increase your colleagues’ (and company’s) effectiveness?

If that’s what being hunters and gatherers is all about, then a “back to basics” approach (supported by technology for storage and analysis) is not necessarily a bad thing…

By Giacomo Squintani, Marketing Manager EMEA, Servigistics

About a month ago, Managing Automation publisher Heather Holt-Knudsen wrote a piece called “Project 1985″. The article is both light-hearted and stimulating: in it, Holt-Knudsen sets out to live for a week without post-1985 technology (although, within a few lines, such total ban was lowered to using phone ahead of e-mail, not using one-line replies in e-mail, no texting, and only tweeting once a day).

The project never actually took off. In Part 2 of the article, Holt-Knudsen recognises that the issues that frustrate her about technology today do not actually lie within technology itself, rather in the way we have allowed ourselves to become addicted to it. As she points out, “Perhaps all I need to do is ease up versus completely give it up. It’s like what any successful diet requires: portion control.”

Information overload is a danger to which we are all exposed. Whereas in 1985 obtaining data was the key challenge, today differentiating what holds value from what does not is often the main issue. So, when technology does what technology should do (and lends a helping hand), it should be welcome. Turning our back on technology for the sake of it is not progress.

Back in 1985, my interaction with IT was limited to Nintendo handheld games such as “Donkey Kong”. But I remember with equal fondness University life, and research undertaken at library desks with paper books (remember them?) as Internet terminals were only just emerging - the nearest to a computerised search was the process through which you located the book you needed. So, for all the cursing I occasionally do when my Inbox is overflowing, I am forever grateful that I have the opportunity to do what I do at this moment in history - in an age when technologies are at their most interactive, interoperable (hey, when I started out on a Macintosh LC II I couldn’t share files with the rest of the world…) and deliver measurable results.

The same principles apply in Service. We sometimes curse at talking heads and IVR menus, longing for that old-fashioned human touch instead of technological abuse. At the other end of the relationship, somebody may well be counting the beans and the saved costs, though not necessarily the lost customers. But the technology in itself is rarely flawed: rather, we should marvel at what techies all over the world have achieved, and ensure their output is channeled in a value-adding fashion. When it improves productivity and the customer relationship, when it increases visibility over the Service operation and reduces costs, when it improves efficiency throughout the supply chain… basically, when it makes life easier for everybody involved, then technology has delivered upon its timeless promise. That’s the dessert we all wait for.

Now - where did I put that Rubik’s cube? Because let me tell you - you couldn’t find the solution online back in 1985…

Interactive Marketing is cool, innovative, slick, forward-thinking, and creative.  B2C companies that employ interactive marketing on their websites, in their ad campaigns, marketing collateral, etc. make companies with static websites and non-interactive collateral [what is the opposite of interactive?] look like Sunday school teachers from the 1970’s using flannel boards to illustrate Bible stories.

Consider some of these inventive examples of interactive marketing:

• Real women’s stories about financial planning for Wachovia Securities. What a refreshing way to present the client case study: http://www.planforwhatsnext.com/
• Remember Harold and the Purple Crayon? UPS tapped this magical marker idea for their whiteboard campaign where the long-haired guy illustrates what “brown can do for you”: http://whiteboard.ups.com/
• What if you live to be 100? How will you take care of yourself? Genworth Financial created the Genworth100, a website that featured the oral history of several centenarians as a way to pitch their financial planning services.

It’s entertaining, eye-catching, fun and informative.

But for B2B transactions, turn off the talking head.

When I’m sitting at my computer at the office doing research or evaluating potential vendors, I want the flannel board approach - let’s be old school: get me right to the point - something I can quickly read and process. Clear, Concise, and Direct.

Don’t make me sit there and listen to some dumb talking head spewing fluff. When I want a client case study, I’ll click on it and then it better be a good story illustrating what the potential vendor can do.  Otherwise, I’ve lost patience and will move on to the next vendor.

How does this relate to service?

The other day I was driving home from work and saw a car with ricohteknoforce emblazoned across the side and rear. So, when I returned to work, I decided to visit the website to see if this was another Geek Squad post-sale service play.  The answer: yes and no - more of a B2B IT outsourcing play.  Nevertheless, I was completely rattled by the talking man. I just wanted to navigate the page to see what Ricohteknoforce offers. http://www.ricohteknoforce.com/

Seriously, no one listens to it. So just save him for later. If I want to hear someone speak to me, allow me to click on it - don’t throw him at me while I’m sitting in an open office and pressed for time.  Consumers, on the other hand, have the time and privacy away from work to enjoy such leisure viewing and listening activities. I don’t.

But I also rip off the wrapping paper from my presents rather than slowly untying a bow, unpeeling tape, and neatly unfolding the pretty paper. Those people drive me nuts.

What do you think?

Earlier this week, The Economist reported on how staff-motivation schemes may be feeling the impact of the recession. You may be experiencing it yourself: as corners are cut, those elements that are not seen as directly linking to revenue, and which take up time that could be devoted to primary activities, are most endangered. Of course, the line between perception and reality is blurred: as The Economist reports, “Towers Perrin, a consulting firm, found that between 2002 and 2006 companies with excellent records in motivating staff generated an average annual return over the period that was 9.3 percentage points higher than that of the companies in the S&P 500 stockmarket index”. Their message is clear: dismiss the value of motivation at your peril.

This article in last October’s Harvard Business Review did a pretty good job of pinpointing four key areas to focus on for motivating employees. However, in times of trouble, our focus shifts towards corporate stability, rather than individual benefits. We can go back to basics, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: we pursue Self-Actualisation and Esteem only when Safety is taken care of. When this is no longer a given, our perspective changes – and, with it, our behaviour. The best healthcare and pension plans in the land are worth nothing without a job underpinning them.

If this blog entry could guarantee you safeguarding your job, it probably wouldn’t be publicly accessible – and I would retire on selling the formula. But this is anything but The Age of Guarantees. Furthermore, how you go about re-engaging your staff (and yourself?) within your organisation depends on specifics that a generic entry cannot address. You should be aware, however, of changing behavioural patterns around you.

But I will make one point I believe is relevant to us all. As you look to cut costs, close that deal, refocus… don’t lose sight of the importance of customer service.

Companies that excel in customer service foster an atmosphere that improves both internal and external relationships. Furthermore, remember:

·         Winning a new customer costs as much as five times as much as retaining an existing one – and that’s before you’ve built up any loyalty or knowledge;

·         Customers who become advocates are an amazing marketing tool; unhappy customers are a potential barrier to growth;

·         Dealing with happy customers motivates staff. Solving issues for appreciating customers gives a great buzz. But dealing with unhappy customers, not being able to help them… that leads to high turnover rates. And high agency fees…

·         If your products and service are at the premium end of the scale, this is the time to be engaging with customers – to ensure you are not threatened by low-cost alternatives

This is not just about niceties. Even in a recession, excellent customer service makes sound financial, commercial sense – throughout your value chain. It’s only normal for you to lose sight of this, at times. But, if you let your competitors make the mistake on a long-term basis and you keep your eyes on the prize, you will come out of these time a stronger player for it.

Greetings from Paris.

That always sounds extravagant, doesn’t it? Well, don’t get carried away. I have a checkered history with accommodation in this beautiful city, and tonight’s tipped the balance the wrong way.

I am here for a two-day User Conference with our European Pricing customers. And ‘here’, more specifically, is the Radisson SAS near CDG: convenient, practical, respected. The sort of place you associate with good service; an impression that I have had reinforced in the past few weeks, during which I’ve dealt from afar with the hotel’s Commercial Department to get the event set up. Nothing has been too much trouble for them.

Then came tonight. I cleared customs, and duly waited for my shuttle bus at Terminal 2B. It’s a Sunday night, so I appreciate the service will be relatively infrequent. Some thirty minutes later though, having seen the Hilton’s shuttle go past me for the fourth or fifth time, it’s hard not to wonder.

A couple of hotel guests waiting with me are on the phone to the hotel, who assures them it’s ten minutes away. Trouble is, they had done that 25′ earlier - equally abruptly. Now it’s bad enough when expectations are mismanaged by the local pizza delivery joint: but this is a hotel brand that prides itself on service, leveraging it to charge a premium price. Does it know what’s going on? If not, why not? If so, why the blatant misinformation?

In the end, I waited 50′ for the shuttle. How long the other two guests waited, I daren’t imagine because when it finally arrived, there was only one seat available. Since they were travelling together, they kindly offered it to me. They weren’t as docile towards the driver or the hotel reception, over the phone. The waiting had been bad; the deceit, unnecessarily aggravating. I wouldn’t want to be in the driver’s shoes as he heads back to pick them up from here, which he seemed to be doing - even after Reception had guaranteed them another shuttle was already en route and would be with them five minutes after ‘mine’…

Whatever you sell, your customers are not idiots. Most customers tend to have greater patience than you may think. They accept things go wrong - indeed, fix their problems well and their loyalty will be higher than had they never existed. That’s why Dell showcases its Enterprise Command Center to illustrate how it helps its customers: because doing so exceptionally well is a true competitive differentiator.

What customers don’t accept is being lied to. That’s just insulting. While it’s no more insulting than it ever was, it is easier to get found out, since there are just too many sources of information available for customers not to verify what they’re being told. And it’s too easy for customers to share their dissatisfaction within minutes, as you are proving by reading this.

If you can’t always be truly exceptional, at least always be exceptionally true.

When the company that’s owned the top spot in the Interbrand Global Brand List for the past eight years makes a move, others follow. Or, at the very least, they take note.

Coca-Cola has released… no, not its secret formula, but the carbon footprint of its various brands. That’s right: we now know that “a 330ml can of Coca-Cola sold in Great Britain has a carbon footprint of 170 grams and the same sized can of ‘diet Coke’ or ‘Coke Zero’ has a footprint of 150 grams. A 330ml glass bottle of ‘Coca-Cola’ has a footprint of 360 grams”.

So - what does that mean? Does it make Coca-Cola green, because it’s facing up to its corporate social responsibility and working on programs to reduce its footprint? Given what happened when it tried to improve its formula in the 1980s, could this be a key strategy for the company - as it leaves the product alone and looks at how CSR can enhance the brand? That was the view the Chief Executive took last year…

Will you soon be surrounded by analysts measuring your company’s carbon footprint? Or is that already the case? Of course, not everybody’s customers react as strongly as Coke’s when products are tweaked - most welcome changes. And, in companies where funds are harder to come by, product managers are still likely to shout louder. Yet this announcement is unlikely to remain isolated… would you bet against carbon footprint becoming an integral part of Annual Reports, alongside EPS and ROCE, in ten years’ time? That’s the way the Environmental Protection Agency is heading in the US…

But don’t panic just yet. Service can play a major role in reducing carbon footprint - all along boosting profitability. Cutting unnecessary trips through routing and scheduling and by ensuring techs have the right part, reducing inventory levels, improving remote support… it’s only natural to look at this from a business perspective, and to how it improves first time fill- and fix-rates, or calls/day. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But you know what? There’s nothing wrong in acknowledging that it cuts down your carbon footprint, either. That’s when it all starts tying together. Neat, eh?

I wanted to expand on the concept covered in the previous entry to explore a key benefit of excellence in service - one that is all the more critical in the current climate.

We have seen throughout this blog how service delivers profitability on a sustainable basis. It helps you retain profitable customers at a time when, rightly or wrongly (don’t get me started on this one - not here…) marketing spend is typically cut; it offers differentiation at a time that product commoditisation is rife. Sure, mass customisation is happening; but technology makes that easier to copy than differentiation built on people and processes; differentiation, that is, built on service.

So these uncertain times call for proven solutions and methodologies. As President Obama said on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Inauguration Day, “Our workers are no less productive, our minds not less inventive, our services no less needed, our capacity remains undiminished”. He was addressing a US crowd, but such statements ring true around the globe. Yet what these times are compromising is the critical link between that invention and the financial gains it stands to deliver.

Let’s take one simple example, since everybody else seems to be doing the same: Twitter. Do you tweet? I’ve only just started (feel free to follow me), out of a mixture of curiosity and fascination. The phenomenon itself is gathering attention, but so is curiosity over how it will make money. Indeed, is there any money in Web 2.0? I expect Apple and its network of independent iPhone Apps writers would merrily tweet ‘yes’. But, for many, the question mark (and the cloud of the previous dotcom crash) hovers.

With service, there are no such debates. There is room for constant improvement, in which technology (including Web 2.0) can play a significant part; but the fundamentals are a given. Look after your customers, and they’ll look after you. And, when the winds are howling and the levies are cracking, as is the case all around us, it’s imperative to ensure we excel at the basics before attempting to stretch. Many a great offerings have failed due to bad timing. But there is no such thing as a bad time for great service. Service always delivers.

That’s what makes service sexy. Because it’s not about comparing a sweaty technician with a funky website. It’s about knowing whom you can count on when it matters. And, if your customers can count on your service infrastructure to deliver, so can you - to deliver profits. And that’s always worth tweeting about.

We’ve been saying it ever since I started working here: post-sale service can not only be a competitive differentiator, but it can also be a source of revenue. Yeah, yeah, and I sound like a broken record - oh wait, people under the age of 30 may not understand that reference to records….

In fact, service made the cover of BusinessWeek once again – but as fellow service blogger John Wild points out – “What was missing was the Business to Business sector in which extreme customer service is so important now.”

Wild also reminds readers that “the end business customers (those that rely on the equipment they’ve purchased or leased to remain performing or to be service ready) are a fickle bunch. They’re paying for performance (up time) and expect it. Let them down, and they’ll start looking elsewhere for products that perform better or that are serviced better. So this challenge hits right at home in the field service and service parts logistics environment.”

That means that the right part better arrive with the right technician at the right time at the right location…or else you’ll miss your SLA or the client will simply do business with someone else in the future.  

Why some many business publications fail to mention B2B post-sale service is perhaps due to the fact that it’s just not sexy.  After all, the fun comes from buying – not maintaining or repairing, right?

Wrong. Post-sale service  is sexy. It’s sustainable, socially responsible, profitable and catching on. Hope your business is ready!

Earlier this month, we looked at the Convergence Economy – and how the paths of Manufacturing and Service are uniting to differentiate successful OEMs from tales of woe. That was less than three weeks ago – so what’s happened since?

Regardless of where you are reading this, some companies will have gone bust. Others will have made the headlines for their request for state assistance. When did interventionism suddenly become acceptable again?

There are fundamental economic issues, as well as moral, discussions to be had here – only ‘here’ is not the place. Servigistics’ concern, both as individual corporate citizens who now indirectly own a stake in some of the world’s leading brands as well as a corporation dedicated to helping leading global players, is that the companies who today benefit from State Aid will tomorrow benefit the countries supporting them – through taxation, innovation and employment opportunities. It is an aspiration which belongs to no political affiliation, but again illustrates how these are times of convergence.

State Aid that is not linked to a fundamental shift in strategy is unlikely to yield the long-term results required – and may only serve a political purpose (although, in the automotive industry, the concept of a “domestic car industry” is now blurred – or at best emotional). It is widely accepted, for example, that many problems in the automotive industry, while exposed by the downturn, were not caused by it – not least its tendency to run at full (and expanding) capacity regardless of the state of the economy. Sooner or later, something would have to give – and, boy, has it given. Which is why there is a sound argument (put forward by, inter alia, the likes of “The Economist”) for not supporting manufacturing – if all it is going to do is manufacture items nobody currently wants at prices nobody can currently afford.

Those “ifs” are the key to the argument. If State Aid enables long-needed business transformation and refocus on principles (e.g. R&D into alternative fuels, as is the case in the UK), then it goes beyond the purpose of a short-term band aid. Alternatively, it may be prolonging the agony at the expense of more creative organisations.

This is not the place for company-specific considerations. But, as we raise our heads above the water and consider what the post-downturn model may look like, here are some generic thoughts for you to dwell upon:

·         Companies that have mastered flexibility in both manufacturing and service are faring better in these troubled times;

·         OEMs that meet the convergence criteria in offering products and services are less likely to make the headlines for the wrong reasons;

·         When it’s genuinely customer-focused and market-oriented, innovation pays. Companies that have reached the top through innovation in their field should continue to enhance their proposition by focusing on core capabilities while enhancing their secondary capabilities through best-of-breed partners