Extend Lean To Your After Sales Service Too!!
Ever since Lean philosophy became mainstream, businesses have embraced it a lot all over the world with varying amounts of demonstrable and measurable success.
Some have understood the philosophy and applied the principles smartly to their business, while others have focused on the tools without so much imbibing the lean thinking in their organizations. Whatever has been the approach, today there are many businesses that have had their value production process touched by lean techniques. Some of them have got good results leading to improvement in product quality, reduction in cycle times, reduced costs etc.. However, how many of these organizations, that have had moderate to high successes have really felt encouraged by their success and extended the lean philosophy to after sales services process?
As an example, the other day, I had a problem with my home AC (made by a world known manufacturer that has extensively deployed lean techniques in its organization). I went to the website of the manufacturer and looked up their after sales number in India. I called them up and after navigating through several menu options was able to get to speak to an operator. However, I was put on hold with some music ringing continuously telling me that my call was important to them, so I should not hang up and continue to wait. After a few minutes I did hang up planning to try later. A day later I called them up and after a moderate wait was able to speak to a customer care personnel who noted down my details, serial number of the AC, warranty details etc. and asked me what the problem was. Once I explained the problem, he internally connected me to their technical department. There again I spoke to another person, who asked me all the details I had already supplied. After a few minutes, he scheduled an appointment for a technician to come to my place and check the AC out.
In the above incident, as a customer, what could have been irritating? Speaking for me, two things I thought could have been improved were- 1. the delay in getting to speak to a customer care person 2. having to repeat my details, machine model and serial number etc when I was transferred to the technical department. Once the technican came to service the equipment, there were other irritants, but that can be the subject of a later blog.
So this organization, which has deployed lean in its internal production and sourcing processes, fell short when it came to meeting the after sales expectations of a customer. Maybe it is time for this organization and others to analyze their after sales processes and draw the necessary value stream maps to eliminate the non- value adding activities. Customers’ interactions with a company do no end with sales, rather begin with it. Hence adopting lean philosophy for after sales will play an important role in keeping customers happy.
For example, regarding the non- value adding delay in getting to speak to a customer care person, I had a pleasant experience with an utilities company in Iowa. I had to get something corrected on my electricity bill and called the customer care number up. I was told that their customer care persons are busy and it will take xx seconds to speak to one of them. Alternately, I could leave my number and I would be called back, which I did and in a few minutes I got a call back from the customer care. I liked this very much since I could hang up, get back to my work and the onus was on the company to call me up. This eliminated the non- value adding delay in holding the call waiting to find a customer care person to be freed up.
Regarding having to repeat my details, it might be surprising, but I have found this happen in probably half of the various customer cares that I have needed to call regarding various things. As a customer, it should be a normal expectation that my details are captured at the first touchpoint, and then transmitted to multiple departments as the call is transferred. But it is unbelievable how so many companies still have not got this right.
Agreed that lean techniques that work for manufacturing will not all work for after sales, but basic principles such as identifying what is value adding and what is not from a customer point of view will be a good start. Lean has been extensively applied in several services sectors such as hospitality, financial services etc., it will not be too difficult to extend it to after sales too. If you have outsourced your after sales services to third parties, then make sure you work with them to eliminate the wastes from the process that a customer needs to go through after making a purchase of your product.
