There are many ways to reduce the costs of a service department. Of course, the opportunities that arise here also depend on the individual structure of a department. As a small suggestion, you will find 5 levers below that often remain unused.
1. improve escalation management
There are often one or two colleagues in a service team who are really good at conducting escalation and complaint discussions with customers. It is best to appoint one of these employees as your department's escalation manager. In many after-sales departments, escalation and complaint discussions are handled by a service manager alongside their actual work. As a result, they often give in to very high customer demands in compensation negotiations so that they can then concentrate on their actual work again.
A dedicated escalation manager generally achieves far better results here. They have much more time to get to the bottom of the incident and understand the customer's customer's concerns. This is why you often find that an escalation manager only only be able to agree 10-20% of the original claim with the customer without the customer without upsetting them further, whereas ordinary service managers tend to average around 30 % and often leave some scorched earth behind. and often leave some scorched earth behind.
2. challenge your partners!
Many companies work with partners to whom they outsource simple installation and maintenance tasks (and, more rarely, repairs). The reasons for this are usually capacity problems or lower costs. There are often more companies offering such services than you might initially think.
Most service departments can therefore save a lot of money if they occasionally put partnerships out to tender and are surprised by the offers they receive. You can compare these offers very easily on an hourly rate basis.
You don't necessarily have to change partners afterwards. This would not always be so easy if you have already built up a relationship over a long period of time and internal processes are interwoven. However, you can use competitor prices to exert some pressure on the partner's sales and management in order to achieve a price reduction. This is absolutely appropriate in many cases. Many companies simply pay too much here because they are not aware of the current market prices.
3. check software licenses
Check from time to time which software packages have accumulated on your technicians' computers over the years. There are often some surprises and curious finds here. Many things are not covered by group licenses, but by several individual licenses. If you restructure here and cancel unneeded software packages, in most cases the ruble should already be rolling.
It is often clear to everyone involved that money is being wasted in this area. Nevertheless, it is often put off for a very long time to clear the air here. That's why checking licenses is an excellent starting point if costs need to be cut quickly somewhere.
4. review travel policy
Travel policies regulate, for example, when employees can stay overnight in a hotel, how much the costs may be and other matters relating to field service assignments. If a company has not actually defined a general travel policy for its service employees, it is highly recommended that it does so.
But even existing guidelines can usually be optimized. You will always find something here at one point or another. There are often levers here that work particularly well if your price list for the customer works with flat rates. However, home-away-from-home rules or regulations on how far hotels should be from the customer also usually offer a lot of optimization potential to reduce costs.
5. rent tools instead of buying them
In after-sales, you can often spend huge sums on all kinds of special tools. For this reason, you should consider whether you really need to buy all the tools yourself. Most suppliers have now jumped on the X-as-a-Service bandwagon and also offer products for rent.
You should ask yourself before products, you should ask yourself how often a device will actually be used use and, if necessary, check whether there are any more cost-effective rental options are available. If, on the other hand, you are actually forced to buy If, on the other hand, you are actually forced to buy, purchases should possibly be organized across so that you don't have several parts lying around in different branches. lying around in different branches. In duty-free areas, this is not a problem and an excellent lever for saving costs. for saving costs.
Of course, the options listed do not claim to be exhaustive. However, many readers will certainly be able to apply them at one point or another. Ultimately, there is certainly potential for optimization in many places.
