Pearson on Excellence: After-sales Service—the forgotten supply chain

Today’s digitally empowered customers are just as demanding about after-sales service as they are about the products and services they buy. While customer expectations for after-sales service are growing, surveys consistently find that today’s customers are mostly disappointed and frustrated with the customer service they receive.

In fact, two-thirds of respondents to a recent Accenture survey called The Global Consumer Pulse Research (GCPR) Initiative said that, within the last year, they switched providers due to poor service. Among that group, more than 80 percent cited broken promises as the reason.

In another survey conducted by Accenture, 43 percent of interviewees observed that, in the previous 12 months, at least one company they dealt with “reneged on a service-related promise.” The implications are clear: Many companies aren’t providing the quality of service and support that today’s more-demanding customers expect.

Results from the GCPR survey further revealed that, although call centers are the channel customers use most for service and support, only about 50 percent of callers are satisfied with their call-center experiences. In turn, companies are falling short in the precise service and support area customers turn to most.

Why are companies finding it so difficult to offer after-sales service that can keep such customers happy? The reason is partly historical. Often called the “forgotten supply chain,” service operations tend to suffer from understaffing and underinvestment. More fundamentally, traditional service and support models are still heavily dependent on the availability of human interface—call center personnel or field technicians—to respond to customer requests. This hinders the ability to scale up and meet the digital customer’s service expectations.

Traditional service models are also often tied to departmental organizations with their own sets of rules having little or nothing to do with customers’ schedules and preferences. With this, front-end customer service organizations and back-end service operations are often siloed service functions that seriously compromise execution.

Many companies lose track of the customer once he or she leaves their call center. The vast majority of call centers also use measures and incentives designed to get a customer off the phone as quickly as possible—for example, average handle time, which has absolutely nothing to do with customer issue resolution.

Similarly, in-home service execution, resource planning (parts, labor), and field execution (schedule, dispatch, routing) remain almost totally unintegrated. All too often, technicians show up without the right part, can’t fix the particular equipment, or miss the appointment window altogether.

Here are a few suggestions to bring service and support performance into line with today’s digital customer expectations.

Open new channels
One way to improve the service experience is to open new service and support channels. For example, handling micro-service requests through social media, “unsourcing” service by enabling customers to offer support to other customers, and using video forums to entice customers for self-service maintenance and repair.

JPMorgan Chase lets customers go to their Twitter page and actually see the customer care representative with whom they’re talking. This creates a level of value and intimacy that’s missing in regular phone conversations.

Leverage new technology
The rise of machine-to-machine connected devices and inexpensive sensors has led to exciting new ways to solve age-old problems in service and repair. Equipped with advanced sensors, GPS and communication capabilities, more and more machines can monitor and communicate their service-related status. Caterpillar, Inc.’s predictive asset maintenance solution Cat Product Link can help eliminate unnecessary maintenance checks, zero in on failure points, and suggest likely fixes.

Develop new approaches to service
Another approach being taken is to create differentiated service programs or whole new service models. Executing a successful new service engagement model requires analyzing the incoming customer data stream and turning customer insight and contextual information into relevant experiences and offers that customers value. With its tailored service program, Jaguar Land Rover China has taken service engagement in another direction. Automobile buyers are assigned a personal after-sale assistant with whom they can communicate. Owners also can watch various maintenance procedures via video monitor.

In addition, there are many other service-improvement directions. Most companies, for example, could make customers’ service experiences more consistent across channels. They could also improve speed and agility by integrating context-aware services with modern collaboration capabilities. The only constant is the opportunity for broad-based improvement.

To get in sync with the digital customer, service operations must build “digital-relevant” speed and agility into its DNA. This is the only way companies can deliver after-sales service experiences that leave a mark on the customers’ minds and earn their loyalty.