Service is the new marketing

Customers are becoming increasingly demanding: fast response times and round-the-clock availability. Personal or efficient customer communication, good service and additional services therefore characterize the customer experience and contribute to the brand value.

The level of service for B2C products sets the pace: In the B2C environment, service has long since established itself as the new marketing for all major brands. For many brands, the actual product often fades into the background or is at least no longer the sole selling point, as numerous alternatives or cheap copies are already readily available thanks to globalization.

As a result, personal or efficient customer communication, good service and additional services characterize the customer experience today and contribute to the brand value.

Customers are becoming increasingly demanding: fast response times, round-the-clock availability - with consistent communication across all channels - and the immediate resolution of any problems that arise are expected. Companies that establish themselves as a "love brand" meet these expectations and create a positive customer experience, which has been proven to lead to high customer loyalty. In addition, customers spend more money on these brands and recommend the products to others.

Technical service as a market opportunity for German industry

This insight creates a major opportunity for large parts of German industry, which is often rooted in the B2B environment and has to hold its own against increasing Chinese competition on the global market: differentiation and growth through service. Especially as services and products offer far greater potential in terms of sales growth and margins than traditional product sales, particularly in the context of the current growth forecasts for mechanical and plant engineering. The VDMA has established that the share of service in total sales has already risen from 12 to 20 percent in the last 20 years. The further forecast assumes an increase to an average of 30 percent by 2023.

According to a study conducted by the VDMA together with goetzpartners, services in the German mechanical engineering sector in particular can secure additional income, improve low margins in the new machine business and carry companies safely through economic crises. A dynamically growing service business can help to increase a company's earnings even when overall sales are stagnating.

How SMEs can optimize their customer service quickly and easily with innovative technologies

Small and medium-sized companies should not miss out on this opportunity either. With the help of the ongoing digital transformation, they too can make their processes, systems and workforce fit for the new service requirements, thereby gaining new customers and retaining them in the long term. I recently spoke to the managing director of a small, innovative company that sells and rents out construction machinery and organizes the smooth operation of vehicle fleets. This company works independently of manufacturers and therefore services products from a wide range of suppliers.

And this is precisely where some of the central problems lie:

The manufacturers' documentation is often inadequate for product maintenance.

Access to distributed information is either not possible at all or only possible with a great deal of effort.
The required information is not available at the customer's site or outdated information is used.
The day-to-day experience of the service technicians is not used for the benefit of the company.
New employees are only trained slowly and at great expense.

Customer service expectations have also risen at this company in recent years.

A repair is supposed to solve the problem the first time. However, the problem areas listed make precisely this more difficult. For field service staff, the pressure to get it right has never been higher - an almost impossible task without the help of modern technology.

But what's the best way to go about it? What features do you need to get started with a central knowledge base to provide really good customer service?

Three key factors have emerged that need to be considered for a quick start:

A central service portal quickly from distributed documents

The easiest way to get started is to use the service documents already available in the company. It doesn't matter where this information is stored or how it is organized. They are often scattered somewhere in file systems. However, additional service-relevant information from other source systems, e.g. websites, databases or ticket systems, can also be connected via the central knowledge database.

Service employees can easily access this distributed information using the central service portal via a website, which usually provides all relevant information automatically with two to three clicks in order to delete the service case. If the user decides on a document, the appropriate page is even opened directly. This saves time and increases acceptance.

The simple, self-explanatory handling of such systems reduces the inhibition threshold for accessing service information when questions arise. It also ensures that technicians always have access to the most up-to-date information.

MOBILE SERVICE DOCUMENTS - Getting to grips with the Leitz folder and USB stick

To ensure that service knowledge is always available at the touch of a button, it is important to consider a holistic solution. After all, all information is useless if it is only available online and the service technician does not have access to a network in the production hall or boiler room, for example. Up to now, the relevant documents have often been exchanged between technicians using USB sticks - or worse still - lugged around in countless Leitz folders as catalogs. This process is prone to errors and means that the latest information is not available when needed or has not yet been distributed. A suitable solution for the service should therefore definitely offer the option of being able to use the required information offline on a smartphone, tablet or PC. It must be ensured that the latest information is always synchronized automatically, without the intervention of the technician. Ideally, users should also be able to create their own favorites for frequently used documents or content, which they collect for themselves on their mobile device. These must also be automatically kept up to date by the software system.

STANDARD SOFTWARE - Benefit from the ideas of others

The use of standard software is definitely recommended in order to drive digitalization in your own company quickly and at low risk. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, i.e. web-based services where the software provider provides the software as well as operation, updates and the IT infrastructure for a fixed monthly fee, are a good option here. The advantages are obvious: the investment risk is low, the IT costs are transparent, the solution is available immediately and you benefit from regular enhancements and ideas from other companies and users. As a rule, such solutions can also be tested free of charge for a fixed period of time. It is helpful to involve future users at an early stage. In this way, it can be ensured step by step that employees accept the service portal and use it consistently later on.