Customer service.

[waynemoore]

Customer service. During my long work history I have held several positions most in the service and customer service area. I think what a lot of companeys forget is the custome (end user) pays all the bils. Without him no revenew no sales.

With that in mind my philosophy has always has been MAKE IT EASY for the customer to deal with you. Remember in most cases the only reason he is calling you is to buy something from you or looking for warranty repairs.

The only reason Keystone wants us to go though a dealer to buy parts is so the dealer can add a percentage to the part to make money.

I once worked for a medium sized company who sold though representatives (dealers) and it was policy that customers were told to call the representatives to order parts.
For the first several months I worked there I was told to visit as many customers as I could and find out what they liked and did not like about our equipment. Just to be clear I was hired as the National service and customer service manager.
The single biggest complant was the customers felt like every time they needed parts the Reps did not know just what the customer was talking about. They did not know the parts make up of the equipment. The Reps had to call the factory and try to figure out what the customer needed. So the call would go back in forth between the customer to the Rep, Rep to the factory back to the Rep then to the customer. All this to protect the reps commission.

How do we change this so that the customer (remember the man with the money) can get what he needs with one call?

Keystone take note.
Easy let him deal with the factory directly, you know the people who built the equitement in the first place and who know it best.
I setup a 25% flat rate commission on all parts delivered into their territory. In most casses that was 5% more than they were getting. Plus releaving them from having to mess arround trying to figure out what the customer needs.

Customers loved it as they got their parts the first time they called and we found that we got direct input re what problems they were having repairing the equitement. Our service personal were able to help them do the repairs correctly.

Ok done with the rant and I do feel much better.