Achieving better revenue and customers’ satisfaction with after-sales services

Excellence Through Downstream Innovation in Times of Pandemic: Insights from the Auto Sector

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the industrial supply chain globally. The automotive sector in India has also suffered and are trying surviving while reviewing and reinventing business models, structures and processes, to cope with this unprecedented crisis. This study is of an Indian auto OEM major as it focused upon training its downstream partners, to counter a situation of complete lock-down due to the pandemic. The authors attempt to develop a service excellence framework, based upon their unique engagement with 100 plus auto dealers. Critical success factors are identified based on the dynamics between the success factors using the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach. Customer relationship management, service excellence and operations excellence at the dealership level were found to be the key ingredients for survival and success of both the channel partners and the OEM. Service quality benchmarking, People development and Process mapping, were found to be key enablers of excellence in times of crises, creating customer delight and efficient inventory management. Effective communication with staff and inventory management are critical to success, especially in tough times. Customer satisfaction, inventory turnover and revenue from new business are key metrics of success to be focused upon during such times. This is a possible future area for research in managing crises.

The after-sales strategy of an industrial equipment manufacturer: evaluation and control

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the after-sales strategy of an industrial equipment manufacturer.

Design/methodology/approach

The research study’s object is the Brazilian operation of a company belonging to a multinational group that designs, manufactures and installs technology-based equipment. The research method is qualitative modeling with a quantitative analysis. A literature review and a focus group with managers organized the after-sales strategy of the company in four constructs measured by 24 indicators. The constructs are technical assistance (TA), reliability management (RM), customer relationships (CRs) and spare part logistics (SL). A total of seven managers evaluated the importance and performance of the indicators.

Findings

TA, RM and CRs are lagging constructs (the importance is greater than the performance), whereas SL is a leading construct (the opposite). The study proposed four strategic actions that change the type of emphasis that the company poses to service: from in-house to field maintenance service, from correction to prevention reliability improvement, from technical- to customer-focused relationships and from direct to integrated logistics service.

Research limitations/implications

The study limits to the case of a technology-based manufacturing company.

Practical implications

The strategic movement reallocates resources from leading indicators to lagging indicators in a sharp, clear movement of forces in the company.

Originality/value

The main contribution is a structured method to evaluate and control the strategic performance of an industrial equipment manufacturer in after-sales activities.

Service quality evaluation of automobile garages using a structural approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the service quality automobile garages through development of a service quality index based on the factors influencing service quality.

Design/methodology/approach

A structural methodology of graph theory and matrix approach is applied for developing the service quality index.

Findings

The automobile maintenance can be considered as a service industry and in order to sustain in the competitive business environment, the service providers must ensure quality in their services. There are several factors that influence the service quality. Each factor is comprised of several sub-factors. Moreover, the factors are interrelated with each other. Modelling of these factors and their interrelations with due consideration of their structure is accomplished through the graph theory. The directed graph (digraph) of the service quality is defined; the nodes of this symbolize the quality influencing factors, while the edges represent their degrees of interrelationships. An equivalent matrix developed from the digraph establishes a service quality function which leads to evaluation of service quality index (SQI). A greater value of the service quality index displays that the organization and functioning of the garage is adequate.

Practical implications

The methodology can be applied for evaluating as well as comparing service quality of different garages. The observations would be helpful to the managers the garages to make strategies for improving their service quality.

Originality/value

The paper establishes the interrelations among various factors that influence the service quality at automobile garages and develop a numeric index for the evaluation of the same.

Evaluating after-sales service units by developing inverse network data envelopment analysis model

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an inverse network data envelopment analysis (INDEA) model to solve resource allocation problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors estimate inputs’ variations based on outputs so that the efficiencies of decision-making unit under evaluation (DMUo) and other decision-making units (DMUs) are constant.

Findings

The new INDEA model is developed to allocate resources such that inputs are not increased while efficiency scores of all DMUs remain constant. Furthermore, the authors obtain new combinations of inputs and outputs, together with a growth in efficiency score of DMUo such that efficiency scores of other DMUs are not changed. A case study is provided.

Originality/value

This paper proposes INDEA model to estimate inputs (outputs) without changing efficiency scores of DMUs.

Managing risk for auto warranties

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to analyse the existing work of warranty risk management (WaRM); second, to develop a generic WaRM framework; and third, to design a generic taxonomy for warranty hazards from a warranty chain perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

To understand the top warranty hazards, the authors designed a questionnaire, received 40 responses from the warranty decision makers (WDM) in the automotive industry in the UK and then analysed the responses.

Findings

The assembly process capability at suppliers is the top contributor to warranty incidents from the suppliers’ and original equipment manufacturers’ (OEMs’) viewpoints. The human error at different stages of the product lifecycle contributes to the occurrence of warranty incidents. The collaboration among parties, particularly, the accessibility to warranty-related data between parties (i.e. suppliers, OEM and dealers), is limited. Customers’ fraud contributes more to warranty costs than warranty services providers’ fraud. The top contributors to customer dissatisfaction relating to warranty are the warranty service time and service quality.

Research limitations/implications

The questionnaires were used to collect data in the UK, which implies the research outcomes of this paper may only reflect the UK area.

Practical implications

The WaRM framework and taxonomy proposed in this paper provide WDM with a holistic view to identifying the top contributors to warranty incidents. With them, the decision makers will be able to allocate the required fund and efforts more effectively.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature by providing the first work of systematically analysing the top contributors to warranty incidents and costs and by providing a WaRM framework.