How can you provide after-sales support in a global market?

After sales is one of the most important part of a long term customer relationship in my opinion. Most companies do a hit and run, they court the customer and make them feel like this is the beginning of something special, only to leave them as soon as the sales is in the book. In my world that makes you the same as a used car salesman and the customer feels frustrated. To really make a good relationship with a customer you need to share their vision for their future and be there for them to see them grow but also support them to realise their maximum potential within your solution. Once you create a solution for the customer, you have tied them to your company and you should nurture this relationship for the benefit of both your companies

In Today's world after sales Service has become ever more important. It is very important to regularly update customer Data, what problem has been faced by him using a product and service in the past and how quickly that problem was fixed. Even the problems regularly faced by a customer can be categorized. Some problems like how to use a product initially can be very common and hence Demo by a qualified Representative can easily resolve a problem in the initial stage itself.

After-Sales Support in global market suppose to be start by strong networking and end by great service team to execute the services.

In reality, continuous measuring customer pulse is crucial to gather key insights about their expectations, experiences and to contrast with your own service offering and looking for process improving opportunities. A powerful tool is the Net Promoter Score which serves as guidance for collecting valuable feedback; hence, translating into predictive, preventive or even corrective actions.

Support customers when they are in trouble, it will surely give further business. When we help customer when they are in trouble, they will surely remember this.

It depends, about the level of the Aftersales support. I suppose we talking about Distribution support to the dealership level, because the main customers are being serviced in the Dealership level. This support is always more a less is being performed from distribution side, the main question is, how to improve this support, giving real benefits to the dealership to improve the customer service. Most attractive way of supporting aftersales is very simple and based on aftersales personalities from both sides continues meetings and all the problems, issues and plans step by step follow up and establishing the measures to execute them to the specific dealership aftersales area: main service, body service and parts.

Operar en remoto y prevenir incidencias en el soporte postventa global es crucial integrar tecnologías emergentes como la inteligencia artificial para automatizar respuestas y análisis predictivo. El uso de chatbots avanzados y asistentes virtuales puede proporcionar asistencia inmediata. Además, implementar plataformas de análisis de datos robustas facilita la identificación proactiva de patrones que podrían indicar futuros problemas, permitiendo una respuesta rápida y eficiente antes de que el cliente experimente inconvenientes.

The use of technology for communication and collaboration cannot be over emphasized as we are in the era of Industry 4.0. This can be more effective through exclusive or non-exclusive partnership with a local company, as they can facilitate such communication through emails, webinars and self-service portals of the OEM or manufacturer. In some developing countries, after-sales support with the presence of a local partner thrives more and such local partner can easily acquire client database in the country and share with the OEM or manufacturer for email blast, marketing materials, webinar invitations and many more. Sharing a recorded version of webinars or trainings because of time difference would go a long way as well.

Well trained support staff is also very helpful for the manufacturer, not only by satisfying the customer but also by reporting the repeted technical issues can help the designers to develop the product and avoid such problems in the new version/ model.

There is a saying that says "what you don't have, you can't give". Training is key to both internal staff and local partners. Local partners are usually the first to reach out to when issues arises which can later escalate to OEM if it is beyond their capabilities. Also, it will further help when there is a need for upgrade of a particular model or trouble shooting when there is an issue.

"What cannot be measured, cannot be managed" Customer feedback needs to be monitored as it will help address any concern raised by the customer before loosing such to a competitor.

Providing value-added services can give you a good entrance to many organizations and increase customer lifetime value. Such as free facility audit, health check of the assets/equipment and provide a detailed report and recommendations that can prevent a downtime.

True. Engaging with the clients and acting proactively is the key. Having a process and giving authority to employee in charge to take actions is a must.

It is very good to build long-term relationships and trust . Apart from communicating regularly, proactively and many others already mentioned, one can schedule a visit to clients with their local partners, be physically present at exhibitions to answer questions and share more knowledge with them. They feel valued having you visit them.

One of the major area we should consider for making efficient after sales support is concentrating to build and develop systems that have capabilities to self-heal. It’s still a long way to go considering the complexities and constraints in the same yet with such self healing systems in place at-least there would be considerable amount of repairs related to softwares could be carried out by the car itself which would reduce the need for customer visiting the service station.

Another area to be considered is having a local partner or distributor in each country. I have managed over 40 OEMs businesses(exclusive and non-exclusive) in Nigeria. I can emphatically say after-sales services are much easier through partners and end users are more comfortable with any OEM with a local partner. Should in case, they are in need of support, it is easier, faster and timely to reach them. Imagine an OEM that needs to fly down to the country for after sales support, how about the time to the process visa and the impact of the down time on customer's operations?