• Optimising Service Processes – Boosting revenue – Minimising Risks
• Customer Services as Transformation Solution
• Cooperation in Partnership of Producer and Provider of Customer Services Has Priority

Kaufbeuren, January 2010. — Satisfied customers are loyal customers. It is by no means sufficient to offer customer services as a simple auxiliary service; producers or retailers of electronic products can mostly only score against competitors by excellent service quality. A customer who is happy with the customer services of a company does not only hold value in himself because he hardly will migrate to a competitor. The success will be multiplied by this customer informing friends and relatives about his good experiences.

Specialised service companies today can faster recognise changes in customers’ demands criteria and better judge if a service is to be assessed as “good” as the producer company could if it provided these services itself. This is the case because the basic range of products of external service specialists aims at the whole feasible service portfolio; it is diversified individually later on. This view beyond one's own nose is impossible for the service department of a single company.

This is one result of the Lünendonk^® basic study “Customer Services as Factor of Success”. This study has been composed by the Lünendonk GmbH, Kaufbeuren, in cooperation with Accenture GmbH, arvato services and B2X Care Solutions GmbH. In addition to a representation of the process cycles and of the market, current and future trends of a dynamic sector will be displayed of which the importance has been continuously on the rise for the last years.

Optimising Service Processes – Boosting revenue – Minimising Risks

In order to maintain the brand image and to preserve customers’ loyalty a company has to be interested in raising its customer services onto a preferably high but still economically maintainable level – and to keep it there. Substantial investments and provisions are necessary to achieve this, especially with a company operating globally. In order to remain on the current level of technology and customers’ demands, it is vital to continuously enhance customer services. This stepless innovation as well as the resulting costs may partially or completely be incurred by external service providers.

An optimization of customer services goes along with the outsourcing – the service provider is interested in both making the sectors entrusted to him as efficient as possible as well as pleasing his customers. For, using economies of scale, he can offer these optimised services to other customers as well. He centralises the entire after sales process chain in one platform; by using standardised IT solutions and automatic workflow the service provider is also able to guarantee constant traceability of all operations. New products and producer expansion into new markets can be accounted for in very short time. By reverting to reliable service partners all over the world the service provider is able to realise customer services of producers and retailers of electronic products on a global scale. Customer Services as Transformation Solution

The development of a service organisation within the company hierarchy as a rule proceeds in four steps.

Step one: Initially the cost center internally offers services. Here, service is part of the sale of a product; it does not generate turnover on its own and is controlled by budget.
Second step: On the next level the business department intra-corporately takes over the services for other plants. Revenue depends on the productivity of the business department. The product is expected to establish itself as a brand against its competition. For this, a consistent quality of the customer services has to be guaranteed.
In the third step the service is transformed into an independent company unit with a revenue balance of its own. It focuses on the company’s own product range. The service department guides the product.
Step four: The transformation is completed with the adoption of customer services by service providers like Accenture, arvato and B2X. These companies focus on entirely taking over a company’s customer services. The product is managed by the service; the price structure is also arranged accordingly. The customer services to a large extent are standardised so that they can be offered to other customers as well.

“Of course, on regional or local level the customer services have to be adapted according to demand, e.g. specific to nationality”, says Thomas Lünendonk, proprietor of the Lünendonk GmbH. “This in general causes a strategy conflict between a nationally high level of service quality and internationally oriented cost reduction plans.” Locally and/or regionally there is usually the desire to guarantee the best service possible. The international level however generally administers provisions and the budget which usually results in a higher cost pressure. The more standardised the services the higher the optimisation of the costs – this rule of thumb gets in conflict with the subsidiarity principle of the local business departments. In this respect, internationally active customer services providers offer valuable support as well.

From now on, the detailed Lünendonk^® basic study “Customer Services as Factor of Success” with over 70 pages is available for free with Lünendonk GmbH as well as Accenture, arvato services and B2X Care Solutions GmbH as a PDF file.

The Lünendonk^® studies and publications as part of the service portfolio of Lünendonk GmbH belong to “Strategic Data Research” (SDR). In connection with the services in the portfolio elements “Strategic Roadmap Requirements” (SRR) and “Strategic Transformation Services” (STS) Lünendonk is able to support its consulting customers from the development of strategic questions to the recovery and analysis of the necessary information to the implementation of the results in the operational day-to-day business.

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