How TrackoField helped a leading Home Appliance Manufacturer Optimise After-sales Services

Our field service software catered to every use-case and challenge the leading home appliance presented.

Do you think word of mouth plays a crucial role in making or breaking brand affinity?

Yes, you are absolutely right. It 100% does.

Marketing and advertising may drive most of the sales for products and services globally but it’s the branding that keeps them sailing. What makes a company or a start-up a brand in the eyes of people? 

The product/service quality and the after-sales experience are the main ingredients in the making of a brand. Brand intent and customer-centric approach enhance the flavours these ingredients add to branding. The better the post-purchase experience a company ensures, the higher the rate of repeat customers they get.

“The Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your products or services, and those who bring friends with them.”

W Edwards Deming

What happens when the product is solid, the intent is pure and the approach is right, yet there is something that doesn’t align in terms of execution?  

Well, technology is the superhero that doesn’t wear a cape! Field force management software with after-sales services automation can help you streamline after-sales operations effortlessly.

The Client Persona 

The leading home appliance brand in India and worldwide has come to TrackoBit seeking software solutions to its operational challenges. They have a handsome market share in the European, South American, and South Asian regions with massive manufacturing units in India, Spain, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and China. 

Along with a widespread B2C market, they also have a reliable B2B market.  In India alone, they have more than 300 distributors and 15000+ retailers. 

Imagine the amount of manpower they require on-field in order to provide flawless after-sales services. Apparently, with a great brand name comes great responsibility to maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction.

What’s the Secret to Achieving Maximum Customer Satisfaction?

Well, the list of efforts and measures to ensure the top level of customer satisfaction is long. It may also, vary a little from industry to industry. However, in the case of our clients and their concerned industry, the following are the areas that needed extra care to enhance their customer’s experience. 

Ease of Accessibility: The easier it is for customers to reach the brand in case of queries, the better the customer experience gets. No matter how big a brand grows, customers are the core strength or matter of any business. It’s a brand’s responsibility to make the existing customers and the potential customers feel more connected to the brand. 

In today’s time and age, other than customer care support, website and emails, there are social media where customers feel more convenient to raise their complaints. Field service software connects all these touchpoints and optimises operations.

Instant Response: Now, that the customer has raised the complaint with the brand, now it’s the brand’s responsibility to respond to the complaint promptly. The quicker the companies are with replying to customer grievances, the clearer it is that a company cares about its customers. The laid-back attitude gives the impression that the company is taking its existing customers for granted. It not only hampers their existing customer base but also, doesn’t ring well with potential buyers.

Transparency of Facts: Buyers have become more aware today. They are not only well up on the product or the service they are using but also, mindful of their rights and privileges. Therefore, brands don’t just have to cater to them well but also stay transparent with them when it comes to information related to their customers and their purchase history.

Companies now provide customers with their dashboard and profile on their website to have a look into every essential detail. Thanks to customer service automation, customers can generate complaint tickets on the website itself, see the current status and the complaint history, serial number of the product, complaint history, and much more.

Quick and Satisfactory Servicing: Firstly, the brands aim for no complaints per se. However, the bigger and more varied the customer base gets, the higher the possibility of customers’ grievances. What now, when the customer has faced an issue? The brands provide a warranty period in which the customer gets free services and in some cases replacement of products. Further, the brand offers at-home services.

The companies must streamline their after-sales services right from registering complaints to finally delivering the work. Resolution within a few hours, automatic data update, and the least possible manual intervention with the help of field service software – ensure satisfactory experience these days.

After-sales Service Challenges Our Field Service Software Resolved

The Field Service Management Software comes with a bunch of solutions that actually solve use cases for users. The leading manufacturer of home appliances had its share of industrial challenges. These challenges restricted our clients from achieving the customer satisfaction that they desired. 

They work on a franchisee model after-sales services. An international brand can not have its service centres in each city across the globe. Therefore, they collaborated with the national or local service providers they provided with franchisees.

What are the pain areas that TrackoField addressed?

• Lack of on-field Visibility: Being a manufacturer, our client’s visibility was limited to the franchisee level and not beyond that. They had complete control of operations and insights right from receiving the complaints to the tickers getting assigned to the franchisee via area managers. How the franchisee handles each complaint, which technician gets the task, when he delivers the service, whether or not the customer is happy with the service, and many other questions remained unanswered. 
• Revenue Leakage: The leading manufacturer of the home appliance company was not just paying per complaint the franchisee addressed but also had overhead charges for the distance travelled and the spare parts used. The franchisee manually generated the bill by mentioning the distance with no proof and the spare part name without a serial number. Therefore, the company was paying the conveyance and spare part charges blindly. 
• Manual Task Allocation: The company had no clarity on the criteria that franchisees had to choose technicians for each complaint. The newbie technician was visiting a decade-old loyal customer and experienced executives were fixing minor issues. The brand wanted standard criteria for task allocation. Sometimes due to manual task allocation, a few complaints get overlooked leading to delayed service. 
• No Transparency of Data: Data is what companies are swearing by these days. In this time and age, without data companies are unable to plan their operations, and business strategies and do product upscaling. The company had zero visibility beyond the area manager level, let alone the data. Even the data that the franchisee provided was not accurate. Data such as – the distance travelled by an average technician in a month, the average time duration right from receiving the complaint to task completion, the best and worst performing technicians, and so much more. 
• Compromised Customer Service: As we discussed earlier, the brand was compromising on customer experience due to a lack of automation. They had no control over task allocation at the franchisee level or the timeline followed by the franchisees, which reflected badly on the brand’s part. The discrepancy between the franchisee and customer feedback was the result of flawed management.

How TrackoField Optimised After-sales for the Global Home Appliance Brand

What happens when a leading field service management software joins forces with a top-notch home appliance brand? 

Fireworks and roistering!

Team TrackoField did what we do best, providing field employee monitoring solutions to our client’s business problems. 

We healed one pain area at a time!

A. Visibility, Transparency, and Insights

The set of solutions we offered to tackle the issues related to the transparency of data and lack of visibility. 

• Real-time Tracking of Technicians: With live tracking not only could the franchisee track all their respective technicians on duty but also the concerned team at the company track all the technicians in real-time. 
• Task and Timeline Report: The software fetches data on each task scheduled for the day to franchisees and the technicians under them. The company could also monitor the timeline of each complaint in real time. They get an alert every time the technicians miss the task or run late to executive it. 
• Ad Hoc Task Allocation: A global brand receives hundreds of complaints every minute. Therefore, our very potent field service management software would assign the emergency task to the technician who is closest to the customer location. The field service software also takes into consideration the schedule, availability and reachability of the technician. 
• Performance Analysis: Unlike earlier, the field service monitoring software generates automatic performance for each franchisee and technician. Now the company doesn’t have to be dependent on franchisees for quarterly reports. Hence, removing the scope for errors. 
• Unreachable Reports: The unreachable report is one of the most appreciated features by our client. Unreachability was one of the most cited reasons for delayed task delivery by the technicians and franchisee. Our after-sales services software also generates the report on when and how many times the field executive was in no network area.

B. Enhancing Customer Experience

How could a field force management software help improve customer experience? Well, it can! Here’s how. 

• Happiness Code via SMS: Customers who technicians visit get an SMS with a live tracking link and happiness code that they share with the technician only if they are happy with the services. Otherwise, technicians just mark the task done from their end. 
• ETA and Tracking Link Shared with Customers: The tracking link in the SMS directs the customers to the screen where they can see the whereabouts of the technicians on the map. They get the real-time estimated time of arrival. 
• Instant Task Allocation Through Automation: The software saves time that earlier would get wasted due to manual task allocation. Franchisees do not have to manually check the schedule of each technician or call them to know their whereabouts and availability. The field service management shoots the tasks to all the closest, and available technicians whoever picks the task gets the task. 
• On-time Technician Visits: With every party on the same page, the chances of miscommunication and discrepancies of facts are impossible. The customer, the franchisee, the technician and the company get access to the same insights on the technician’s movement. The aftersales servicing software not only ensures efficient time management by automating task allocation but also ensures the credibility of data.

C. Fixing Revenue Leakage

Expense Management Software by TrackoField came to the rescue. Automatic travel expense calculation was the simple solution to the major problem.  

• Accurate Distance Travelled Report: When it comes to calculating the distance travelled, it’s the accuracy that matters the most. The more often the phone shoots the data packets, the faster the battery exhausts. For field executives, a phone battery is essential to retain. Hence, our efficient field employee tracking software fetches data at longer intervals yet, manages to deliver 97% accuracy in tracing the route followed. 
• Automated Travel Expense Calculations: Now, the software has the data on the number of tasks delivered and the actual route followed, it’s a cakewalk for the software to calculate the true expense. TrackoField generates the task-wise and technician-wise conveyance expenses.
• Category-wise Expense Reimbursement : TrackoField also, provided the category-wise expense reports. Different reports on travel, food, and spare part expense. This also reduces the cases of spare part pilferage which was again one of the pain areas for the company.

Field Service Software’s Outcome

For a global brand to rely on manual management in this time and age is not appropriate. TrackoField, automated the entire after-sales services and maintenance for the leading global home appliances brand. The data and operations are streamlined at every level company, franchisee, technician, and customer. 

If you have a similar or equally challenging use case that you need resolution for, reach out to the experts at TrackoField.