The strategy for a manufacturer's service is one of using service to improve customer relationships through customer satisfaction. Service business is all about people. The service headcount is the biggest within the company, and a far as customers are concerned, there are those who have bought equipment over a number of years and are known to Service.
In an organisation that sells capital equipment, service has the role of supporting sales and the company image. Its performance is measured partly by the sales, although it has to be ran as a business handling the large costs of manpower and parts inventories necessary for keeping customers running.
In a way, service acts as the intermediary between the customer and the company. To the company, it provides vital information to departments such as R&D, Operations, marketing and sales, as well as to general management and to Quality Assurance. To the customers it is seen as a friend providing training and useful advice as well as being accessible to help maintain uptime to make profitable use of their purchased equipment. Its people have to be approachable and available to others while keeping their problems to themselves. Customers may not always be right but they have to be approached with patience and humility. A balance has to be struck between looking after them, and looking after the costs of the business.
Naturally, not all customers can expect the same level of service. Those who enjoy low overheads by having their business in remote places cannot expect the same response times as those in metropolitan areas. There are those who think that they economize by extending the use of consumables past their recommended dates and run the risk of low performance. They blame you when their results do not come up to expectations. Others may have staff problems with high turn-over so there is little knowhow left at any one time, putting the onus on you to continue visiting and retraining. Then there are those that hardly ever call because they are organized to look after their equipment . Customers range from the near expert to those who no matter what you may do will run into problems and for whom a service contract can be an expensive business for you. No matter which type of customer, you have to placate and hand hold them because in the end they are all potential buyers of your company's equipment.
You have
to be a diplomat and a good listener letting customers speak and
get their problems off their chest. You have to be sure not to miss
either what they say and how they say it. In short you have to adopt a
low profile and be helpful.
Take the case of a customer who complains that he is not getting the results expected from his
system. You know from the field reports that the problems are due to
lack of proper customer maintenance. You cannot immediately blame his
staff so you have to be diplomatic
and offer a face saving solution, one that
will get the maintenance done and save both sides from conflict. To fix
the real problem you agree to taking the system out and replacing
it temporarily with a loan standard so as to give his machine a thorough check
up away from his premises. This
satisfies him and in return you ask that for a period of time his people must send a
daily report so as to follow up until
such time as you are satisfied that all is working well. The customer now has to maintain an updated
daily log which means that maintenance will not be neglected.
In the end you make the customer feel that he is right but you solve the problem to your satisfaction. There’s never a boring day with such a variety of customers and problems. A good service can be profitable and at the same time you get to help your companies image that can lead to further sales.
