Saving Cost on After-Sales Service - An Indirect Profit Stream

In a scenario where fierce market competition and rising challenges have made the market volatile, winning customer trust has become more important than ever. Talking about the manufacturing companies, effective after-sales are the law of business. According to a survey conducted by PRTM, the leader in Global Supply Chain Management and Customer Value Management, the manufacturing companies that pay attention to managing their after-sales enjoy customer service and operational cost advantages over average performing companies. Their report is backed by the following stats:


• Companies that focus on after-sales experience 75 percent lower inventory per dollar of installed base


• Companies that streamline their post-sales processes enjoy 15 percent higher fill rates


• Companies that manage their service and repair functions benefits from 15 percent more on-time service-parts delivery


Controlling inventory and spare parts with diversified manufacturing units and its regional & central warehouses, often becomes one of the measures in yielding returns. This is because after-sales business processes stock maintenance; repair management and account management are often managed by sales team, product line management and repair centers and not by the OEMs alone. This requires an end-to-end visibility to cover its service costs and exceed the revenue. The driving issue of underperformance in after-sales management is that these entities do not have an automated way to see sales performance at every echelon.


A handset manufacturer for example, looses focus on the after-sales, while devoting all its energies on the manufacturing and handset quality. The entire focus is on manufacturing & sales and is not able to view trends on whether warehouse manager dispatches the stock on time, if service centers are over budgeting the spare parts inventory and the like. This hinders the repair process and increases turn-around-time (TAT) needed to support warranty obligations and to minimize excess and obsolete service-part write-offs. This is a dual loss as the revenues price skyrockets and the end-customer is frustrated with the delayed services.


As long as the process is manual and masked in the veil of excel sheets and email notifications, the efficiency level is tend to decline, revenue streams deteriorate and TAT increases. The solution lies in a robust, automated Service Management System that offers real-time updates on the after-sales processes.


When you get real-time updates, you are able to view and review business performance, parts movement, and thereby also get the ability to take decisions that work in the favor of the efficient after-sales mechanism.

5 Key Reasons Why Your After-Sales Service Operations can be a ‘Loss Center’ to the company

Just like any other business processes, running after-sales service and repair process successfully, it is pertinent to manage each steps involved coherently and accurately. Ignored or left to chance, your Service operations can be a Loss Center to the company. The factors mentioned below will help you identify the significant aspects of service operations, and the difficulties attached with it.


Scheduling and Assigning Work Orders- Scheduling, assigning and handling work orders to service centers and engineers is the most crucial part of the service operations. If you rely on tools like Whiteboard, Excel and Outlook for this, you must be losing out on your business. These tools can help you disseminate the information like assigning work orders and updating repair status, but fails in “tracking” the minute-by-minute status of the work order(s).


Warranty Management- In many situations, it is more than likely to show out-of-warranty calls as in-warranty and claim the service. Manual tracking by viewing the POP (proof-of-purchase) does not help to prevent such practices. Warranty Management becomes a neglected source of competitive advantage, where it can be an important factor in the manufacturer’s cost-reduction strategies.


Service and Part Claim Management- Invalid claims, repeat claims, non-reimbursed and forfeit claims are common in the service industry. When thousands of work order calls run simultaneously, it gets a tad too difficult to distinguish between the valid and false claims. If not taken care of, service and part claim can become an irrevocable expense for the company. An automated tool like Service Management System can rationalize the service and claim management system, helping to keep the invalid claims at bay.


Escalation of Work Orders- When a product is escalated to the higher service level center, tracking becomes all the more important. Since these centers do not have customer walk-in, it is important for the management to keep an eye; so that the next time the customer asks for the status, he/she should be given due clarity. Manual tracing in this case just increases the communication gap (and therefore repair TAT), leaving your customers unhappy and dissatisfied. Service Management Software can track and manage all the escalations during the service process in real time.


Product and GAP Analysis- The best part about the service and repair industry is that it can be its own performance analyzer. With Service Management Software, you can measure the product performance on the basis of complaints and faults in particular models. Which product is failing the most and which product is facing the same problem all over again. Along with this, you can also analyze the service center’s and engineer’s efficiency level.


If you have experienced these pain areas before, automate your service operation processes before it eats up your bottom line. Getting a Service Management Software in place could help you streamline the processes. Companies that use a best-practice approach to manage service and repair operations with the help of Service Management Software can provide better value to customers while improving the bottom line and increasing customer loyalty.

Importance of Service Management Software in Consumer Durable Industry

At the time where economists have termed the recent recession as the worst in over 60 years, downsizing costs, maximizing efficiencies and making customers happy have become more important than ever. Business managers who have understood this dictum have survived the tough times; others have succumbed to the circumstances.


Manufacturers in particular, have to take special care that the income that comes from selling their products can very well become an unavoidable expense, if the after-sales service and support is not looked into. Organizations are looking for measures to achieve this.


The most sought-after solution for this is Service Management Software. This system allows the manufacturer and the service partners (that independently handle the service support for multiple manufacturers) to automate the service and support process and help in:


• Maximizing Efficiency

• Reducing Overhead Costs

• Streamlining the Repair chain

• Enhancing Customer Satisfaction


Service Management Software is an intelligent automation tool that helps in reducing the Turn-Around-Time (TAT) of service rendered for a product and measuring product performance and gap analysis. Many manufacturers from consumer electronics and cellular industry have already encashed on Service Management Software from different vendors, and agreed to have experienced controlled TAT, product analysis and minimized chances of pilferage in service claims.


Key features of Service Management Software


Warranty Management- The In-warranty or Out-of-warranty service/repair makes a lot of difference in defining the income or expense of the business. If the product is down for repair while it is In-warranty, it would be an expense to the manufacturer; while an Out-of-warranty call is an income. Managing the warranty status, which is a key module of this software is pertinent.


Spare part Inventory- Service Management Software help in synchronizing asset management with every service center so that the customers never have to go away due to stock shortage. The system is configured with the warehouses and other governing bodies who keep an eagle’s eye view to ensure that every service center at different repair levels has the minimum stock level maintaned.


Claim Management- In the absence of Service Management Software, it is difficult for a service center head to supervise the claim management process. Differentiating the valid and genuine claims from invalid claims becomes easy with the Service Management Software, as every step is recorded and the escalation traced.


Reverse and Forward Logistics- Tracking the complete movement of spare-parts from warehouse to the service centers against indent/PO and defective product/spare-parts back from service centers to the warehouse simultaneously is crucial while maintaining a stock balance. Service Management Software helps in maintaining & managing the balance.


Service Management Software is an end-to-end service CRM that gives you the flexibility and scalability to manage the post-sales service operations. If you are in the manufacturing industry, or run authorized service centers catering to different brands, you can now reduce the losses of downtime and improve productivity of your business with an end-to-end Service Management Software.

Choosing OS Commerce vs. Zen Cart Shopping Solution for Web Development

Today, diverse shopping carts are being used by e-retail outlets to enhance their e-commerce and Web Development activities and offer a unique experience to its customers. There is an exhaustive list of Shopping Carts that include Magento, PrestaShop, CubeCart, OpenCart and StoreSprite. Two of the major open-source Shopping Carts that have attained high popularity in the recent years are OS Commerce and Zen Cart. Many Web Development service providers offer these two Shopping Cart Solutions at a very large scale. However, it is proven that Web Developers do not embrace a single Shopping Cart solution completely, because of the fear of obsolescence or lock-in.

The comparison among OS Commerce and Zen Cart Shopping Cart has taken place by Webmasters at many levels, and this article, by no means, intends to be an extension of the same. This article instead discusses the benefits of both OS Commerce and Zen Cart in a little detail and helps you choose a sound Shopping Cart for your Web Development projects.

Zen Cart Shopping Cart for Efficient Web Development

For efficient Web Development, developers bank on Zen Cart Shopping Cart. Zen is free, extremely user-friendly, an easy-to-install and open-source shopping cart. More than the developers, Zen Cart is a Shopping Cart solution for shoppers. Zen Cart also offers various exclusive features like multiple payment support, varied shipping options, quantity discounts and coupons.

Zen Cart also features multiple customer modes and sales and discounts, unlimited category depth and display modes. It also efficiently supports XHTML template system and offers the liberty to use unlimited extra pages and several ad banners. Many Web Development Companies in India, believe that no Shopping Cart solutions comes as close as Zen when it comes to features and benefits.

OS Commerce for a Strong and Dedicated Shopping Cart

OS Commerce is an open source online shopping cart that offers a wide range of features to online e-commerce stores. Like Zen Cart, OS Commerce also supports multiple currencies and allows the customers to print invoices directly from the order screen. Many Web Development companies vouch for its easy database backup system, and effective Web Development processes.

OS Commerce Shopping Cart features a rich set of functionality that allows e-commerce owners to setup and maintain online stores with minimum efforts and absolutely no costs. Many Web Development, India, firms have Java proficient web developers and are solely dedicated to designing projects in Java language.

Hope this article has been able to provide some help to all those who are yet to decide between Zen and OS Commerce Shopping for their Web Development projects.