Monday, November 16, 2009

Leading Service Firms Achieve High Profit Margins and Enrich the Customer Experience

The latest research report published by the Aberdeen Group found that top performing organizations are turning to multiple service delivery channels to meet the needs of their customers. By managing service as a strategic profit center, forward-thinking companies have rejected the traditional approach in favor of a more integrated approach that includes managing resources (people, parts, vehicles), partners (internal, external), contracts and customers with a razor-sharp focus that aligns directly to corporate goals and objectives. Organizations that have successfully employed a strategic service management approach are able to deliver on the four key precepts of a strategic business unit: customer value, competitive differentiation, financial performance, and product quality.

Research findings in The State of Service Management report indicate that top performing companies are twice as likely as all other organizations to systematically share customer and product information with all relevant internal and external partners. As such, these firms exhibited the following:

• 95% customer satisfaction rate

• 93% customer retention rate

• 34% annual service profit margin

• 25% workforce productivity increase (i.e., number of service calls completed daily) over the past 12 months

The report also finds that leading service organizations are considerably more likely to use an appointment management solution to equip their teams and customers. In addition, leading firms are more likely than others to place a significant focus on business intelligence and analytics in order to better align service-related KPIs with business goals.

More information on the service and support industry can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

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