In the last few decades, customer service has been given top priority in an effort to meet customers’ changing needs, stand out from the competition and strengthen customer loyalty. The service offer is at the very heart of the business model for after-sales and the maintenance of systems in operational conditions:

• spare parts,
• field services,
• maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade services,
• services that guarantee the availability and operation of the installed base,
• etc.

Therefore, it is necessary to define the service offer precisely, according to the expectations of the different customer segments, and in particular in terms of:

• time to intervene,
• product supply lead times (AOG, 24h, 48h, catalog lead times, etc.),
• commitment to the availability of systems and the associated penalties,
• pricing and invoicing conditions.

The most common observed problems are:

• insufficient questioning of the actual value delivered to the customer by the proposed services,
• a tendency to supply premium offers to all customer segments,
• no real control of the service and customer profitability,
• an increasingly complex supply chain due to the profusion of offers,
• difficulty in delivering a satisfactory service rate in comparison with the offers.

The operational implementation of service offers can impact:

• customer relations (organization, specific channels and processes for interaction with the customer),
• the location and level of stocks,
• the logistics infrastructures (number and location of the platforms),
• the supply chain processes (management of demand, production and procurement, order taking and allocation to stock),
• and the operational organization.

In the face of these problems, reengineering the service offer portfolio can serve two purposes:

• standardize whatever can be standardized: simplification of processes, sharing of costs,
• differentiate whatever must be differentiated: focus on certain customer segments, potential for direct or indirect revenue.

There are a number of essentials in this process:

• stay in touch with the market (listen to the sales force, customer and prospect surveys, analyze the competition) together with the sales and marketing departments,
• segment the clientele (business potential, attractiveness of the customer, current / forecast profitability, logistical behavior and expressed expectations),
• segment the offer (basic, differential) and match the definition of the offers to the analysis of impacts on the supply chain and logistics processes,
• associate offer and customer segments in accordance with the sales strategy (competitive investments, levers for negotiations with customers, invoicing services),
• analyze costs incurred by the various scenarios for the deployment and possible invoicing of the offer, define the break-even point between surcharges and income,
• once the scope and the potential of the offers have been validated, plan the deployment of the offers in accordance with the time taken to implement the prerequisites in terms of organization, processes, infrastructures and information systems,
• manage the change in the departments involved and inform customers.

Argon Consulting helps its customers to re-engineer every aspect of their after-sales service offer, from their design through to support with their implementation.