AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Bill Pollock

Are UK field service companies keeping pace with the rest of the world?  In  Parts  One, Two and Three, of this exclusive four-part benchmarking report for Field Service News, Bill Pollock, President & Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies for Growth SM, revealed the comparative performances of US and UK/European field service organisations, the key drivers influencing strategy for UK/Europe companies and KPI focus.  

Here, in Part Four, he reports on attitudes and trends regarding Cloud and On-Premise solutions. The publication of this research was sponsored by Kirona.

 

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By providing customers with the right mix of Web-enabled self-help capabilities, the leading UK/Europe organisations have essentially been able to run their respective services operations more effectively, while also increasing existing levels of satisfaction by allowing customers to become part of their own “support team”.

Self-help support capabilities, such as the ability to order parts, or view current work order status, saves customers – and FSOs – significant time in that an entire series of potential two-way vendor-customer status update calls can be avoided.

In addition, customers can create their own service tickets online, gain direct access to self-service resolution scenarios, receive real-time status update alerts, and track the shipping status of outstanding service parts orders themselves. Basically, the more power the customer has to perform any of these activities itself, the quicker service orders can be created, the quicker potential time-related problems can be identified and resolved, and the happier the customers will be with the services they are receiving from the provider.

By making the customer an integral part of the service delivery team, UK/Europe service organisations can continue to benefit from reduced time- and cost-related factors – while increasing existing levels of customer satisfaction. Customer access to online service order data and information is clearly a “win-win” scenario for all parties.

 

Growth in Cloud solutions

However, the greatest impact on the future of Field Service Management is most likely to come as a result of the growing acceptance of Cloud-based technology, as reflected in one particular series of questions included in SFG℠’s 2015 FSM survey questionnaire. Respondents were first divided into three (3) categories: those with existing FSM solutions already in place, those planning to implement in the next 12 months, and those considering an FSM implementation or upgrade in more than one year.

The results strongly suggest that we are currently in the midst of a fast-paced global sea change in the way FSM solutions are being marketed, sold and deployed.

Among those UK/Europe organisations currently planning an FSM implementation in the next 12 months (or considering doing so in the next 24 months), a Cloud-based solution is preferred by 29% of respondents, compared to only 14% citing a preference for Premise-based – a roughly 2:1 ratio in favour of Cloud.

However, more than half (57%) still remain undecided at this time (compared to only 26% for the general survey population). Still, Cloud-based FSM solutions appear to be the dominant preference. In less than three years since SFG℠’s previous FSM Benchmark Survey was conducted, this represents a sea-change from a market that has historically gone Premise-based for a majority of its FSM software solution needs.

However, the availability of Cloud-based FSM and SLM solutions now allows smaller UK/Europe FSOs to acquire the same types of functionality previously only available to larger organisations, thereby allowing them – in many cases for the first time – to compete directly against the historical market leaders.

 

Key Survey Takeaways

Based on the UK/Europe results of SFG℠’s 2015 Field Service Management Benchmark Survey, the key takeaways are: [ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. UK/Europe Field Services Organisations (FSOs) are driven to meet customer demands for quicker response; improve workforce utilisation, productivity and efficiencies; meet customer demand for improved asset availability, and increase service revenues
2.  A majority of UK/Europe FSOs are adding, expanding and/or refining the metrics, or KPIs, they use to measure service performance.
3. Over the next 12 months, more than three-quarters (79%) of UK/Europe FSOs will have invested in mobile tools to support their field technicians, and more than 53% will have integrated new technologies into existing field service operations.
4. UK/Europe Field Technicians are increasingly being provided with enhanced access to real-time data and information to support them in the field.
5. UK/Europe FSOs are providing customers with expanded Web-enabled self-help capabilities (i.e., to order parts, track the status of open calls, and create service tickets, etc.).
6. More than half of UK/Europe FSOs are not currently attaining their customer satisfaction or SLA compliance goals; and one-in-four are not achieving at least 20% services profitability (although services profitability, as a whole, appears to be improving).
7. Existing UK/Europe FSM platforms are reported as reflecting a more than 2:1 Premise-based over Cloud-based ratio; however, planned FSM implementations in the next 12 to 24 months are reported as more than 2:1 Cloud-based, or SaaS.

Historically, the primary factors cited as driving the UK/Europe – and global - services community to improve its operational efficiencies and service delivery performance have essentially been customer-driven; that is, with a focus primarily on meeting – and, even, exceeding – customer expectations for response time, first-time fix rate, mean-time-to-repair and the like.

However, the economic downturn of the past decade changed the way services organisations think by shifting their focus to ongoing rounds of cost cutting and downsizing (i.e., the denominator of the bottom line). However, this was quickly followed by a shift to the numerator, best represented by an all-out effort to increase service revenues, or turnover.

In 2016 and beyond, the focus will likely be even stronger on the customer in terms of striving to meet (and exceed) their demands, preferences and expectations – or “back to the basics”. UK/Europe FSOs will continue to plan to accomplish this mainly by developing and/or improving the KPIs they use to monitor their improved performance over time, investing in new tools to support both field technicians and customers, and integrating new technologies into their existing FSM or Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) systems.

 

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At 49%, the cited  current investments in mobile tools to support field technicians by UK/Europe services organisations is much higher than the overall survey base (44%),  yet current plans for integrating new technologies are still reported as significantly lower (i.e., only 20% in the UK/ Europe, compared with 34% for the global survey base).

However, plans for new technology integration over the next 12 months are significantly high at 33%, suggesting that the adoption of new services technologies in the UK/Europe may be roughly only one year behind that reflected by the general survey population (which is comprised of roughly 75% of respondents from the Americas).

Planned strategic actions by UK/Europe services organisations over the next 12-month period reflect a more dynamic, rather than static, approach to the field services marketplace.

For example, 51% of respondents plan to develop and/or improve their use of field service KPIs, or metrics, in the next 12 months; and nearly as many plan to improve planning and forecasting activities with respect to field operations (46%).

 

Automating existing manual field service processes and activities (40%) is also cited as a top planned strategic action.

Additional top planned strategic actions, cited by at least one-quarter (25%) of UK/ Europe respondents, include integrating new technologies into existing field service operations (33%), investing in mobile tools to support field technicians (30%) and providing enterprise-wide access to important field-collected data (26%).

Other key planned actions will be taken in areas relating to increasing customer involvement in Web-based service processes (23%); providing additional training to field technicians and dispatchers (19%); outsourcing some, or all, field service activities to partners and vendors (14%); and hiring additional field service technicians and/or dispatchers (11%).

What these data primarily show is that the UK/ Europe field services community recognises the need to take specific strategic actions to enhance and improve existing service operations, and that these actions begin first and foremost with the need to develop and/or improve the use of service metrics and KPIs in measuring and monitoring their service delivery performance.

In addition, it shows that UK/Europe FSOs also recognize the need to invest in the right mobile tools and technologies to empower their resources both in the field, and in the back office, to improve existing processes, meet the growing needs of customers, and make greater contributions to the bottom line.

Use of KPIs

The survey findings reveal that there are basically seven service performance metrics, or KPIs, presently being used by a majority of UK/Europe FSOs. They include:

• 78%  Customer Satisfaction
• 75%  Total Service Revenue
• 68%  Total Service Cost
• 53%  Field Technician Utilisation
• 53%  Percent of Total Revenue under SLA/ Contract
• 51%  Service Revenue, as a Percent of Total Company Revenues
• 51%  Service Revenue, per Field Technician

However, there are also an additional seven KPIs that are used by just under one-half of UK/ Europe FSOs to help them measure performance, including On-Site Response Time (49%), First Time Fix Rate (49%), Service Level Agreement (SLA) Compliance (49%), Field Technician Productivity (47%), Mean-Time-to-Repair (MTTR) (47%), Service Contract Attach Rate (47%) and Service Contract Renewal Rate (47%).

The fact that ±50% of all UK/Europe services organisations presently use up to 14 KPIs to measure service performance reflects a significantly high level of importance placed on the use of KPIs in the overall UK/Europe services community.

 

The survey findings also show that UK/Europe services organisations aspiring to attain Best Practices do not merely look at specific outcomes, such as improving the bottom line, or increasing customer satisfaction; they also look at ways in which to identify the root causes of major problems and leverage process improvement opportunities through the implementation of effective tools and technologies to support their resources both in the field and in the front and back offices that support them.

For example, a majority of UK/Europe FSOs currently support their field technicians with a variety of online capabilities, including the ability to initiate service orders (83%), ability to track and update the current status of work orders (77%), access to product schematics/ documentation (57%) and ability to provide customers with an Estimated Time for Arrival (ETA) (55%).

Other capabilities planned in the next 12 months by at least one-third (33%) of UK/Europe services organisations in support of their field technicians include: [unordered_list style="bullet"]

• 38% Access to problem resolution scenarios
• 35%  Access to customer/asset service history

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Whether it is access to data and information that represents the past (i.e., customer/ asset history), the present (i.e., current status of work orders), or the future (i.e., providing customers with an ETA), the leading UK/Europe FSOs clearly appear to recognize the importance of real-time data and information access.

However, the key to success for many services organisations is that they are also providing their customers with a comparable set of online tools to make both their – and their field technician’s – lives much easier.

 

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Do UK/Europe FSOs prefer Cloud or On-Premise solutions? Find out in Part 4 coming soon...

 

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Are UK field service companies keeping pace with the rest of the world? In Part One of this exclusive four-part benchmarking report for Field Service News, Bill Pollock, President & Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies for Growth SM, revealed comparative performances and some of the differences between US and UK/European field service organisations.  Here, in Part Two,  he reports what  UK and European service companies say are the key drivers influencing strategy. The publication of this research is sponsored by Kirona.

 

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The key drivers that most influence UK/Europe organisations to improve the overall performance of their field service operations are similar to those cited by the overall respondent base, although, with a higher degree of intensity, and in a slightly different order – i.e., one that places somewhat more emphasis on customer demand and workforce utilisation, productivity and efficiency.

Nonetheless, the UK/Europe respondents have clearly identified the specific drivers that are pushing them to aspire to the attainment of higher levels of performance. For example, customer demand for quicker response time is cited by more than half of the respondent base (i.e., 56%) as the top driver their organisation currently focuses on with respect to optimising field service performance.

The need to improve workforce utilisation and productivity, and need to improve service process efficiencies are the next most highly cited at 47% of respondents, respectively.

From such data, it is clear that the main focus of UK/Europe services organisations remains squarely on the customer.

 

They have already recognised that a focus on the customer must be first and foremost with respect to driving their service operations, and that they could neither attain – nor maintain – a strong competitive status in the services community without having focused first on their customer’s needs and requirements; and, next, on improving the internal services operations necessary to meet their expectations.

As such, the common threads that tie all of these drivers together among UK/Europe services organisations may be best categorised into three groupings essentially comprising:

1. Customer demand for quicker response and improved asset availability;
2. Field technician utilisation, productivity and efficiency improvement; and
3. An internal mandate to drive service revenues – and profits.

We also believe that it is a mistake to dwell only on the “top” factors that are driving the market – and the organisation.

In fact, there are several other factors that respondents also cite as just “bubbling under the surface” with respect to their potential impact on the overall well-being of the organisation. These include:

 

• 22% Competitive pressures / need for market differentiation
• 14% Customer demand for more accurate service call scheduling
• 12% Escalating field service operations costs
• 8% Need to reduce dispatch-related errors

It is noted that UK/Europe organisations are far less likely to be driven by competitive pressures/ need for differentiation than the overall survey universe (i.e., only 22% for the UK/Europe, compared to 33% for the overall respondent base).

Also, while only 8% (i.e., or roughly 1-in-12) UK/ Europe respondents cite the need to reduce dispatch-related problems as a key factor, this driver is apparently still an important consideration to a significant number of organisations.

Another key influencing factor revealed through the analysis is that only 62% of the UK/Europe services organisations surveyed have experienced some improvement in year-over-year field technician productivity (i.e., measured in terms of average calls completed per day), compared to 67% among the overall respondents). Nearly as many (i.e., 61%) have experienced improvements in service revenue, per field technician during the same period.

A similar percentage (i.e., 60%) have also experienced improvements in their year-over-year service profitability.

In fact, these year-over-year increases have helped UK/Europe services organisations to attain a mean average of 35% service profitability in the most recent reporting period, only slightly lower than the 38% attained among the overall respondent base.

Customer satisfaction

At a mean average of 82%, UK services organisations are also currently falling somewhat below the global survey population with respect to attaining desired levels of customer satisfaction (i.e., 85%).

However, each of these respective levels of performance assure that most UK/Europe services organisations will likely retain their high standings in the global services community: first, through sheer momentum; and finally, by the fact that they also reflect among the survey universe’s highest levels of strategic actions – both current and planned – targeted to improve these key areas of performance over the next 12 months and beyond.

 

Based both on the survey findings and SFGSM’s ongoing follow-up research, it is not surprising that the UK/Europe field services community recognises that it will need to increase its investments in mobile tools and new technologies to compete effectively in an expanding global marketplace.

In addition, it also recognises the importance of building an effective Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), or metrics, program to measure the impact that its strategic actions, technology investments and resource acquisitions will actually have on the organisation’s performance moving forward.

Perhaps one of the most encouraging signs for the future success of UK/Europe services organisations is that nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents cite the development/improvement of the KPIs and metrics they use to measure, monitor and track their field service performance over time as their top strategic priority.

This figure is substantially higher than the 52% cited by the overall survey population – and even higher than the 52% cited by Best Practices organisations.

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Watch out for Part 3 , where Bill Pollock reports on KPI performance and what technologies companies plan to invest in from 2016 onwards.

 

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Are UK field service companies keeping pace with the rest of the world? In this exclusive four-part report for Field Service News,  Bill Pollock, President & Principal Consulting Analyst, Strategies for Growth SM, explores how UK companies compare with their global counterparts.  

 

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Each year, Strategies For Growth  (SFGSM) conducts a series of Benchmark Surveys among its global outreach community.  The content of this report is derived exclusively from the UK/Europe responses to our 2015 Field Service Management (FSM) Benchmark Survey and, thereby, represents a geographically-specific universe base from which to identify key FSM usage patterns and trends. The research coverage was sponsored by Kirona.

For example UK/Europe survey respondents identify the following as the top factors, or challenges, currently driving their desire to optimise field service performance (compared to the overall global results):

• 56% Customer demand for quicker response time (up from 52% overall)
• 47% Need to improve workforce utilisation & productivity (up from 43% overall)
• 47% Need to improve service process efficiencies (up from 40% overall)
• 41% Customer demand for improved asset availability (up from 35% overall)

Thus, the data clearly reflects that UK/Europe Field Service Organisations (FSOs) appear to place somewhat more emphasis on each of these key market drivers, focusing on customer demand and workforce utilisation, productivity and efficiency, than their worldwide respondent counterparts.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that they are also planning to invest more in mobile tools in support of their respective field forces than other global geographies represented in the overall survey universe.

However, in order to effectively address these key challenges – and strive to attain Best Practices status – UK/Europe respondents then cite the following as the top strategic actions they are currently taking:

• 64% Develop / improve metrics, or KPIs, used to measure field service performance (up from 52% overall)
• 49% Invest in mobile tools to provide field technicians with real-time access to required data and information in the field (up from 42% overall)
• 35% Integrate new technologies into existing field service operations (i.e., iPads, Tablets or other devices, etc. (up from 34% overall)

The big difference reflected in the UK/Europe survey results is in the percentage of services organisations that are currently developing and/ or improving the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) they use to measure performance -  cited as a top strategic action by 64% of UK/ Europe respondents, compared to only 52% overall.

 

In fact, the percentage of UK/Europe FSOs currently developing/improving their respective KPIs, at 64%, is higher than the 62% cited by the survey’s Best Practices respondents (i.e., those attaining at least 90% Customer Satisfaction and 30% Services Profitability).

The remainder of this report provides insight into each of these and other related areas that may be influencing your organisation’s quest to attain Best Practices, as well as highlighting those resources that the leading UK/Europe organisations already have in place – or are planning to implement in the next 12 months.

Field service as profit centres

The survey results reveal that 65% of UK/Europe respondent organisations currently operate service as an independent profit centre (or as a pure, third-party service company), similar to the 66% reflected among the overall survey respondents, but far fewer than the 81% cited among Best Practices organisations.

Even so, there are still more than a third (35%) that operate as cost centres in support of product sales.

While there appears to be some consistency or continuity in these percentages from other surveys conducted by SFG℠ over the past few years, this nearly 2:1 ratio strongly validates the fact that profit centres now represent the dominant business model within the UK/Europe services community and, based on responses from other questions in the survey, this trend is likely to grow even stronger over time.

It is noted, however, that the percentage of organisations running service as an independent profit centre varies – sometimes significantly – by size of organisation (based on annual revenue or turnover).

The overall survey findings indicate that US$1 billion-plus organisations come in at 74%, while SMBs (i.e., Small and Medium-sized Businesses) report only 55%.

 

Not surprisingly, organisations reporting total annual service profits of greater than 30% come in at 76% – one of the highest levels charted among all of the segments covered in the survey.

As such, they are not only operating service as a profit centre – they’re actually making a significant profit by doing so!

Bespoke or out-of-the-box

More importantly, the UK/Europe respondent base clearly confirms that the predominant mode of Field Service Management (FSM) solutions currently being deployed is mainly off-the-shelf, either with some customisation (53%; compared with only 37% overall), or basically right out-of-the-box with no customisation (2%; compared with 6% overall), comprising more than half (55%) of the respondent base in total.

This figure is 9% higher than that cited by global Best Practices organisations (i.e., 46%)

Roughly one-quarter of UK/Europe respondents are either using home-grown, or internally-developed automated systems (15%), or bespoke solutions developed by a systems integrator (9%).

As such, UK/Europe organisations are far less likely to deploy a bespoke solution either internally, or by a systems integrator, compared with the overall survey respondents, but are far more likely to deploy an off-the-shelf solution and, then, have the specific types of customisation they require built-in to tailor it to their organisation’s requirements.

However, the most perplexing statistic may be the fact that nearly one-in-four UK/Europe organisations (22%) are still running their field service operations basically via a series of manual processes (and spreadsheets) – higher than the 18% attributable to the overall respondent base!

 

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Watch out for Part 2 , where Bill Pollock reveals the key drivers for European and UK field service organisations.

 

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We all know the old adage ‘the customer is always right’ and in all honesty we’ve all questioned the truth in that statement at least once in our lives, but how do we ensure that we stay in control when that customer problem becomes a problem customer?  Bill Pollock, President, Strategies for Growth has some suggestions.

Not all customers are “problems”, but as long as their equipment is down, they are experiencing a “problem”. In fact, most customers realize that their equipment will go down from time to time, and most interpret this as nothing more than an inconvenient “fact of life”.

However, particularly when the customer feels they have not received good customer service and support in the past, or if the machine has undergone a succession of similar types of failures one after the other, there is an increasing chance that even a “good customer” can turn into a “problem customer”.

Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes it’s someone else’s fault within the organisation, and sometimes it’s the customer’s fault – however, when all is said and done, it will be the field technician who is the one who will have to deal with it.

Typically, the best way to distinguish between a “customer problem” and a “problem customer “is to observe the way in which the customer is handling the situation.

For example, if the customer remains cool, calm, and collected throughout all of its discussions with you regarding a specific service event – regardless of how many discussions you are forced to have – then, you may consider the problem to be more equipment-focused then customer-focused.

However, if you and your company are doing everything possible to get the equipment up and running, get the replacement parts to the customer site as soon as possible, or get a quick “fix” to a software glitch, and the customer is becoming increasingly less cool, calm, and collected, then you may soon be dealing more with a “problem customer” than with a “customer problem”.

 

We’ve all heard the expression, “The customer is always right”. Well, that is not always true.

The general rule of thumb is, “The more ‘right’ the customer is, the more likely you are to be dealing with a ‘customer problem’; however, the less ‘right’ the customer is, the more likely you are to be dealing with a ‘problem customer’”.

In some situations, it may not be entirely clear which is the case. The one thing that is clear, however, is that in either case you will still need to treat the customer in exactly the same way – that is, assuming they are “right”, and treating them accordingly.

However, dealing with an irate customer takes the situation to an entirely new level! We’ve all had them – irate customers! And, the bad news is, we will continue to have them for the duration!

However, there are two ways in which to experience irate customers; either directly as result of a specific event or situation (i.e., a failure in the middle of a key production run, a repeat failure, a self-inflicted failure, or any other number of product- and/or time-related reasons), or because we have made them irate (i.e., treated them poorly, didn’t respond quickly enough, looked like we weren’t paying attention to them, etc).

In most cases, the former types of situations are largely out of our control; however in virtually every case, the latter are entirely preventable. Of course, the best way to avoid having to deal with an irate customer is to do everything in our power to accommodate them – within reason!

But, that does not always work and, accordingly, there will generally be times when we will need to do some immediate – and intense – “damage
control”.

The main focus of any damage control on the part of the field technician would be primarily to:

• Address the situation directly, and attempt to resolve it quickly, completely and satisfactorily;
• Explain the reality of the situation objectively and calmly to the customer;
• Provide any relevant data or documentation that proves your case, if requested;
• Be prepared to correct any misinformation or misperceptions on the customer’s part to avoid any further miscommunication; and
• Explain concisely and accurately why a specific situation may have occurred, what positive actions you will be taking to correct it, and when they could reasonably expect the problem to be resolved to their satisfaction.

In the services profession, you will probably always be running into some customers who, for one reason or another, simply like to be “irate”. This is a fact of business life, and you should be prepared to deal with it as best you can.

However, by continually embracing and utilising a “Listen, Observe, Think, Speak” (i.e., LOTS) approach in all of your customer interactions, you can successfully reduce these types of instances in most cases.

 

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New levels of customer service performance are now the norm and it’s about time we all realised this,  writes Bill Pollock, President, Strategies for Growth

Until only recently, the Services Lifecycle Management (SLM) solutions purchase/acquisition cycle was a fairly closed-loop, highly structured, and oftentimes formal process. Potential users obtained most of their decision-making data and informational input directly from the vendors, sought the recommendations of published buyer’s guides and directories, and picked up on the latest “buzz” at industry trade shows or via services trade publications – all historically serving as powerful and rich resources.

This was the way SLM solution decisions had been supported and made for decades. But then, the LinkedIn, blogs and social media changed everything – including the means by which information is gathered, reviewed, and analysed; how potential vendors are evaluated and selected; and even the way in which customers position themselves as potential buyers in a largely buyer’s market.

The White House Office of Consumer Affairs has reported that dissatisfied customers will tell between nine and 15 people about their negative experience, with roughly 13 percent (i.e., or about one-in-eight) telling more than 20 people. Satisfied customers, on the other hand, will only tell about four to six people about their positive experience.

 

Therefore, according to the report, customer service failures are likely to be communicated two-and-a-half times more often than customer service successes. As a result, services organisations need to maintain a ratio of roughly 2.5-to-1 satisfied vs. dissatisfied customers just to break even in terms of word-of-mouth customer service feedback.

In all likelihood, customers will become even more critical – and communicative – about their service experiences in the future, based on the widespread usage of social media tools and technology devices. This presents a new front for services organisations to address in an increasingly social media-influenced marketplace; however, there are still many other challenges that must also be addressed.

The three most uniquely daunting challenges faced by services organisations over the past few decades have included the following:

 

• Transforming themselves from manufacturer/OEM cost centers to strategic lines of business (i.e., with their own executive-level management and P&L responsibility).
• Shifting their operational focus from company-centric to customer-centric, whereby the customer represents the focal point of their universe.
• Learning how to treat their business-to-business (B2B) accounts with the same high level of service and support that other vendors use to treat their business-to-consumer (B2C) customers.

Surely there have been other equally daunting challenges facing the services industry throughout this period, as well, including:

• The globalization of business operations.
• An uncertain cycle of volatile economic upturns and downturns.
• The proliferation of new technologies and applications.
• The continuing shakeout of marginal performers, and the resultant consolidation within the supply side sectors.
• The widespread growth of social media for business purposes.

However, while each of these business game-changers ultimately impacts all business segments, the three challenges outlined in the top list above focus uniquely on the services sector.

 

It is no longer good enough to tell your customers that your organisation is “no worse” than any of its competitors (the “like-company” comparison); because, if you do, you will risk hearing something in return such as, “I understand that. But what I don’t understand is why you can’t process my order as accurately as Amazon.com or QVC, or handle my return – and process my credit – as quickly as American Express!”

Companies like Amazon.com and QVC are maximizing their use of the Internet’s communications capabilities by making not only the purchasing process easy – but the returns process as well. For example, you might purchase an item from one of these vendors via telephone, laptop, iPhone, tablet or other handheld device. Once you obtain a customer number, it’s all very easy to place an order.

The overall customer experience is then heightened even further by the high level of communications provided to the consumer (i.e., the receipt of a near-instant e-mail confirmation of the order; the subsequent follow-up e-mails when the item is shipped; notification of when an item is on backorder; etc.). Even the return process is easy: if the item isn’t what you thought it would be (e.g., wrong color or size, you already got one for your birthday – whatever!) you can simply return it in the same packaging used for the initial shipping along with the supplied return mailing label, and a return receipt and credit notification will be forwarded to you (typically) in a matter of days – if not hours! By comparison, can your organisation match these industry-leading practices with respect to its parts sales?

By simply delivering (or promising) the same-old, same-old treatment to your existing customers, you are guaranteed to continue treating them as “just another business account” (i.e., the “B” in B2B). However, your customers are quickly becoming accustomed to being treated better as “C’s” by some of the most successful B2C vendors. They are also increasingly being empowered by the Internet; a seemingly unending number of new technologies, apps and devices; and the ongoing explosion of social media tools.

The time has come for your organisation to recognize that these “new” levels of customer delivery performance are now the norm – and that its customers will increasingly settle for nothing less than the best.

 

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Channel partners can impact on delivery of  appropriate levels of customer service and support.  Yet, establishment of a channel partner relationship can be a very difficult, time-consuming and highly political business endeavor.  Bill Pollock, President, Strategies for Growth, suggests five key steps to creating successful alliances.

Many services organizations have begun to use channel partnerships to enhance their ability to reach, and support, an expanded market base. However, the use of such indirect business channels requires that the organization takes its partnership role very seriously in order for it to bring forth the desired marketing and economic benefits. This becomes particularly true with respect to the potential impact of the channel partnership on the company's ability to ensure that its ultimate customers are receiving the appropriate levels of customer service and support throughout the entire customer service process.

The true test of any services channel relationship may be measured in terms of answering the following three questions:

1. First, will the channel partnership allow the business to more efficiently provide the products and services that correspond with the ultimate requirements of the marketplace and, consequently, are also valued by the dealer/distributor and VAR communities;
2. Will the partnerships into which the business enters be of value for all participants, providing leverage for each to gain additional market share and/or attain additional revenue; and
3. Will the ultimate customers (i.e., end-users, equipment operators, consumers, et al) receive sufficiently high, and consistent, levels of customer service and support.[/ordered_list] 

Most businesses that enter into such partnerships believe that within each channel relationship, they can provide valuable assistance to their partners by assisting them in:

• Creating a sales and marketing infrastructure whereby they can more easily deliver the product and service offerings that they wish to provide to their own customers;
• Facilitating the launch of new product and service offerings to both existing and prospective market segments;
• Continually expanding, and improving upon, each partner's respective product and service offerings; and
• Offering both an existing customer service infrastructure as well as guidelines for supporting their partner's customers with the desired levels of service and support.Place your list items here

However, the establishment of a channel partner relationship can be a very difficult, time-consuming and highly political business endeavor. As such, it is critical that a formal process is involved in moving forward. This process may involve the following steps:

1. Partnership/Management Meetings

The first meeting between an organization's key executives and its potential partners is critical to initiating the partnership process. The result of this meeting will also determine the direction and speed with which the two organizations will pursue reaching their partnership goals, including identifying the degree of interest in alliance between the companies; generating enthusiasm for the rollout of the product and service offerings to the partner's customers; developing a consensus on the objectives, next steps and timeframe; agreeing on the levels of service and support to be provided; and establishing a formal agreement.

2. Establish the Alliance

Establishing the actual alliance is what sets the partnership in motion. At this stage, the objectives become to conduct the internal (i.e., partner) launch; ensure that the sales forces are entirely aware of, and educated about, the joint product and service offerings; and that they are able to consistently articulate and deliver the benefits of the joint offerings to the targeted customers. It is at this stage of the partnership process that the policies and procedures for delivering "seamless" customer service and support, across all company/organizational boundaries, are also established.

3. Generate Market Interest and Demand

Once the initial steps have been successfully completed, the program focus should shift to the generation of market interest and demand. The primary goal of this step is to generate awareness of, and demand for, the product and service offerings from among the partners' joint customer bases. The primary issues addressed as part of this step are the identification of the key influencers and sources of information for the purchase decision makers; implementation of ongoing programs of communications with customers and other market influencers; formal market launch of the product and service offerings; gathering of feedback/response from external audiences; communication of that feedback/response to appropriate internal audiences; and development of customer testimonials and references to be utilized in ongoing marketing programs.

4. Identify Segment Priorities

Based on the results of the previous steps, the objective should now focus on the identification of the targeted customer segments that most value the partners' "new" product and service offerings, and what specifically are their needs and requirements for customer service and support. The key issues to be addressed here include defining a common set of needs and requirements to be fulfilled by the product and service offerings; identifying common characteristics with which to categorize and describe the key customer segments; focusing all marketing, sales and customer service activities on these defined priorities; and capturing new business development opportunities in other areas as they occur.

5. Refine Product and Service Offerings

The final step is actually the first step in revisiting all of the actions and activities that have led to this point. The primary mechanism for ultimately refining the product and service offerings, and the corresponding levels of required customer service and support, is to incorporate the principal issues of customer feedback and response directly into the partners' respective portfolios.

Overall, supporting the ultimate customer may involve all of the organization's channel partners. The most successful channel partners will be those that can maximize the impact of their relationships once they have successfully completed an effective process for selecting the most appropriate partners at the outset; arranging for the establishment of mutually beneficial partnership agreements on a contractual basis; developing and implementing a plan for working together; establishing reciprocal programs for ensuring consistently high levels of customer service and support; and jointly marketing and promoting the full portfolios of each of the partners' products and services.

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The main difference between being able to make unhappy customers happy, and happy customers even happier, is the point of initiation. At least with unhappy customers, even if you do not know why they were unhappy before contacting them (or having them contact you), you can rest assured that you will get the chance to learn very quickly writes Bill Pollock, President of Strategies for Growth^SM

Ironically, however, it may actually be a bit more difficult to make a happy customer even happier than it is to make an unhappy customer happy in the first place – and you certainly would not want to accidentally do something wrong that might make them unhappy instead.

It’s all a matter of listening, understanding, responding effectively and working under the auspices of an intuitive set of guidelines that should largely come as second nature to the vast majority of the organisation’s customer contact personnel (including yourself).

What we have seen from our research is that the best approach for making happy customers even happier is to focus on the following guidelines:

• Make sure that you and your customer services team understand how the customer uses its systems and equipment as part of their ongoing business operations – make suggestions occasionally on how they can improve efficiency, save some money, go green or reduce waste, etc.
• Take steps to better understand the difference between the customer’s wants and needs – provide them with targeted information and advice that they can use to concentrate more on what they “need”, rather than on what they think they “want”.
• Understand the customer's plans for future expansion, downsizing or consolidation – make the appropriate recommendations for updating and/or modifying their existing service level agreements, or upgrading to newer or different models and technology.
• Keep track of the things you have done in the past to make them happy – do more of the same, and learn what other things or actions would also make them happy.
• Customers love to feel they are getting something for nothing – any documentation or materials that you believe may help your customers to utilise their systems and equipment more efficiently, or provide them with additional product or service information, will generally be gladly accepted.
• Customers also love to hear what other users like themselves are doing with their equipment – so, without divulging any customer-proprietary information, occasionally provide your customers with examples of what some other companies are doing, again, to improve efficiency, save some money, or reduce waste, etc.
• Provide your customers with new product or service information before it is otherwise widely distributed or disseminated – customers always enjoy receiving information before it is distributed to the general public.
• Share your organisation’s thought leadership collateral with your customers – most customers especially like to be made aware of White Papers or Case Studies that help them to understand the enhanced value propositions of the equipment and services they are using, or how their peers have benefited in ways they may not have anticipated through the use of your products and services.
• Provide a more "personal" side of your communications with your customers in order to establish a closer, and less formal relationship – but, be careful not to get too "personal"; just close enough so they feel they can depend on you to act as their surrogate within the company whenever a problem becomes larger than what both you and they, can handle by yourselves.
• Strive toward making your relationship with your customers a true "partnership", rather than just merely a “vendor-customer" relationship – this is the true essence of Customer Relationship Management, or CRM.

Of course, all of these guidelines are merely just words written in a magazine article; the true test can only be exercised by you and your customer and technical support teams on behalf of the customer.

In any case, you should always feel comfortable in relying on your own instincts in order to initially assess the situation, determine the appropriate course of action, and override any of these (or any other) guidelines on the basis of your accumulated expertise and experience.

If you are truly going to succeed in establishing – and maintaining – a strong relationship with your customers, then you must first have both the capability and the confidence to use your own judgment in taking the specific actions that will make your happy customers even happier.

 

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In many cases, there may be great differences between a customer's wants and a customer's needs; but sometimes there may actually be only very little difference writes Bill Pollock, President for Strategies for Growth^SM

It all depends on the specific customer. However, the way in which you manage each customer relationship will ultimately make the greatest difference with respect to your prospects for gaining customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Typically, the more knowledgeable customers are about the equipment they are using, the more their wants and needs are likely to be the same; however, less knowledgeable customers may not really have a clear idea of the distinction between the two.

For example, a copying machine customer may want you to clean the equipment while you are on-site if they had been noticing black marks or spots on the copies coming out of the unit; when, in fact, the main reason for the black marks may have entirely been due to a worn-out roller or other part that needs to be replaced.

In a case like this, what the customer really “needed” was clean copies coming out of the machine; however, what they thought they “wanted” was simply for the machine to be cleaned. If you had listened only to the customer, you might have embarked on a faulty corrective action with respect to satisfying their needs. Remember, when it comes to repairing the machine, you are the expert - not the customer!

 

Similarly, a customer may want you to take the machine apart and put it back together again, or replace a part that is not really defective, simply as an exercise to ensure that the copier continues to run “smoothly”. However, what the customer may really need is a more effective preventive maintenance schedule for the equipment that would otherwise negate the need to actually have to take the machine apart or perform a parts swap, etc.

In this case, what the customer “wanted” was for you to take the machine apart and put it back together again; however, what they really “needed” was a machine that would not break down in the near future as they were preparing for a major copy run. Properly scheduled preventive maintenance would have accomplished this, making any further corrective actions entirely unnecessary.

The best way for you to understand the differences between customers' wants and needs is to help them to understand the differences in the first place. It all goes back to the “Listen, Observe, Think, Speak”, or LOTS, approach.

 

By listening to the symptoms that the customer is describing once you arrive on-site, and the problems that they tell you they have been experiencing until you got there, you will probably already be in a good position to surmise what is needed.

However, upon further observation with respect to the machine, you will undoubtedly have an even clearer picture. In fact, by this time, you should probably already have a good idea of exactly what the customer “needs”.

This would also be a good time to explain to the customer what the initial diagnosis is, what you plan to do about it, and the anticipated amount of time it will take for you to repair it. By providing this information early, you can avoid running into situations where the customer is telling you they “want” one thing and being forced to tell them they really “need” another.

In other words, the best way to avoid a "debate" about what is “wanted” vs. what is “needed” is to identify the problem and appropriate course of action as soon as possible, keep the customer informed on an as-needed (or as-requested) basis, and let them know what they “need” upfront, before they feel compelled to tell you what they “want”.

 

Of course, it may not always be this easy. There will always be situations where what you feel the customer needs is not what the customer wants.

This is where an ongoing educational process between you and your customers needs to take place.

This does not mean to say that the two of you need to sit down, read the equipment manuals together, compare notes, and enter into “philosophical” discussions about equipment maintenance; but, rather, that a series of ongoing, brief discussions should take place every time you are on-site to repair the equipment to ensure that the customer understands why the machine failed, what they could do to lessen the chances for failures in the future, what the recommended "fix" is, and why your way of addressing the situation is better than their way.

Sometimes, the solution may be as simple as upgrading to a newer unit.

Basically, what the customer really wants is a piece of equipment that is always up and running, ready to use, unlikely to fail, easy to repair, easy to manage, and easy to use. The details with respect to how each of these is accomplished should really be of no consequence to the customer – although they usually are!

Your role, over time, will be to make sure that you always communicate to the customer about what is “needed” to the point where they have full faith in your knowledge and experience, and are willing to defer to your judgment.

The more communications there are between you and your customers, the quicker they will get to the point where they will defer to your recommendations, and the quicker the distinction between their “wants” and their “needs” will disappear.

 

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