How can good marketers improve customer support services?

DESIGNING & MANAGING SERVICES

Identifying and Satisfying

Customer Needs

Traditionally, customers have had 3 specific worries about product service

1) They worry about reliability and failure frequency.

2)They worry about downtime. 3)They worry about out-of-

pocket costs.

A buyer takes all these factors into consideration and tries to estimate the life-cycle cost,

which is the product’s purchase cost plus the discounted cost of

maintenance and repair less the discounted salvage value

Post-Sale Service Strategy

Customer Service Evolution Manufacturers usually stat by running their own parts-and-service departments. Over time, they switch maintenance and repair services to authorised distributors and dealers. These intermediaries get closer to customers. Later, independent service firms emerge and offer lower price or faster service.

Customer-Service Imperative Customer-service choices are increasing rapidly, however, and equipment manufacturers increasingly must figure out how to make money on their equipment, independent of service contracts.

Created by Anngad Singh, Delhi Technological University,

during an internship by Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.

www.IIMInternship.com