Download Building a Plan for Customer Service and Support

Running Your Reverse Logistics Operations
at the "Velocity of Business"
by Zack Bergreen
Service Lifecycle Management (SLM), is an integral part of reverse logistics and while there are many areas of
functionality that today's SLM solutions can support, only the "best-in-class" offerings provide users with all of the tools they
need to increase their “velocity of business.” Part 1 of this two-part article outlines the key components of a “best-in-class”
SLM solution, and provides detailed descriptions of the features and benefits of the first three major components. Part 2,
which will appear in the July/August 2008 issue of Reverse Logistics Magazine, will focus on the remaining three
components, and summarize how all six work together toward the common goal of meeting—and exceeding—the total
reverse logistics needs and requirements of your customers.
The gradient of success in today’s global services economy is based to a large extent on our respective abilities to make
certain that all of the tools and resources we have at our disposal are focused squarely on increasing the “velocity of
business.” Regardless of which segments we serve, or however large or small our geographic coverage areas are, the
market expects us to support our customers’ total product and services requirements better and faster than ever before.
The irony is that any service organization can benefit from adopting an increased “velocity of business,” not just the large
companies or the market leaders. All that’s required is access to the same tools and resources that the leaders use to
support their customers—and the wherewithal to manage our own customer accounts in line with their respective needs,
requirements and expectations.
According to industry analyst, William K. Pollock, president of Strategies For GrowthSM, “The most successful services
organizations are typically those that have already recognized the importance of implementing comprehensive enterprise
solutions such as Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to support their
workforce, while also allowing them to build commensurate levels of asset management”. In the services sector, we no
longer live in a “shrink-wrapped” world—in fact, we never did! However, in order to attain the desired levels of operational
performance, most businesses today have found that they are becoming increasingly dependent on the rich and robust,
"out-of-the-box" functionality that only comes from the use of state-of-the-art software designed both to increase the
“velocity of business,” as well as to contribute directly to the bottom line.
Research has shown that the key drivers that define the various types of enterprise solutions that service organizations are
seeking to carry them through the next technology cycle are the ability to:








Streamline and automate their business processes;
Compress the contract-to-cash cycle;
Identify incremental sales opportunities and improve revenue recovery;
Collapse non-value-added workflows;
Enhance resource utilization and reduce downtime;
Coordinate efforts of the sales, marketing and services organizations;
Improve compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs), contracts, and warranties; and
Synchronize every customer touch point for increased customer satisfaction.
However, while most service managers will agree that this list represents the principal outcomes they would like to see, the
degree of success they may have in actually achieving them may differ widely from one company, or even one manager,
to another. What they all should really be looking for is an end-to-end solution that addresses all facets of Service Lifecycle
Management; that is, a solution that delivers the functionality they need to address the specific challenges and unique
business opportunities that exist in their own relevant market segments.
But, how do they get there? Actually, that’s the easy part!
How Do You Increase the “Velocity of Business?”
What most service managers are looking for is an effective way to increase existing levels of customer satisfaction and
retention while, at the same time, lowering their overall operating costs through call avoidance, higher revenue recovery,
and increased asset utilization. In the past, these capabilities did not really exist, at least not in a particularly accessible
manner. In fact, many managers were forced to decide between either increasing customer satisfaction or decreasing
costs, as these two outcomes were rarely achievable together. In fact, the general rule of thumb was that in order to
increase customer satisfaction, it almost always involved increasing costs as well.
However, there is new software functionality that allows companies to truly take control over all aspects of their reverse
logistics operations, including the ability to increase their “velocity of business.” This functionality allows companies to
improve all key components of their service business, including:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Field Service
Depot Repair
Logistics
Sales
Marketing
Professional Services
Figure 1
The Six Areas of Functionality that Can Help Your
Organization Increase Its “Velocity of Business”
Field
Service
Depot
Repair
Logistics
Sales
Marketing
Professional
Services
Increasing the “Velocity of Business”
© 2008 Astea International
1. Field Service
For Field Service operations, today’s software functionality truly links the field to the front office. Through the use of this
type of software:




Field technicians are enabled to arrive at their service calls completely armed with both customer- and product-specific
information, as well as the parts inventory and documentation they need to resolve most customers’ issues on the first
call.
A self-refreshing task queue indicates prioritized open jobs, with click-through access to greater detail, and seamless
integration to knowledge stores for workload management.
Real-time visibility to warranties, contracts, and service histories ensures capture of billable time and materials as well
as the identification of potential sales leads.
Status and priorities of open calls are constantly monitored to enable exception management based on specific userdefined triggers.
Basically, what this functionality brings to the table is better service performance, reduced cost-to-serve (i.e., pre-empting
unnecessary calls), increased asset utilization and, as a result, happier customers.
The beauty of the software functionality is that it supports all field service categories including equipment installations,
break/fix, planned maintenance, meter reading and so on. These applications can also be integrated with equipment
diagnostic systems for fully automated solutions that initiate and prioritize service requests and dispatch assignments
directly to the field technicians’ PDAs without the need for any human intervention.
The addition of global time zone support also empowers geographically dispersed organizations to allocate, track and
transfer issues while maintaining comprehensive call history and satisfying service level commitments. Embedded mobile
tools can also be used to enable field forces to work electronically with respect to receiving, documenting, and reporting
assignments; and eliminating manual procedures, service delays and paper reporting—in other words, no more
handwritten transcription errors, since everything is done electronically.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating alternative types of Field Service software should
include:





A universal view of customers, including service histories and state-of-the-art tools for problem solving.
Automatic assignment, location, and requisition of parts according to requirements for call fulfillment.
Interactive graphics, calendars, drag-and-drop scheduling, and hierarchical configuration views diagrams.
Intra-system escalation that alerts staff and customers based on user-specific tolerances (e.g., order status,
contracted SLAs, duration in queue, etc.)
Response times and dispatch prioritization reflecting open calls, contracts, and technician capabilities.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Field Service software should include:





Elimination of inefficiencies in workflow, redundant databases, multiple service calls, and duplicate data entry.
Improvement in the visibility to and, therefore, management of, spare parts and inventory levels.
Unification of activities in a comprehensive management system, synchronized with real-time events.
Customization to unique business environments so that best and current practices can be harmonized.
Ability to match assets to needs to minimize service disruption, balance workloads, and maximize first-call resolution.
2. Depot Repair
Depot Repair support is also an important functionality for any organization that offers customers off-site repair, but also
wants to keep them apprised with up-to-the-minute repair status. For many customers, depot repair already takes too long
compared with on-site support. However, by providing them with up-to-the-minute repair status, some of the “sting” is
taken out of the customer’s wait.
A robust depot repair component will also aid the company's cash flow, by helping to reduce inventory carrying costs.
Through this module the company’s operations gain real-time visibility of the overall repair cycle, and management can
base its decisions on better qualified repair center information, including more accurate cost accounting. The information
gained from monitoring repeat repairs can also provide valuable input for improving product quality.
By automating the tracking of goods through the entire repair process, and providing real-time data on location, status,
warranty and ownership, depot repair functionality can help organizations improve both productivity and cost containment.
The availability of up-to-date information enables better decision-making and prioritization, and limits the risk of
overstocking or shorting parts. Further, it reduces costs for unnecessary expediting when standard flows are acceptable.
Return Material Authorizations (RMAs) can be issued from either the repair facility itself or via a service order generated by
the contact center or field service agent. This is a crucial element toward providing universal visibility from inception of the
repair order all the way through to final disposition. It also facilitates the generation of seamless contract updates to reflect
exchanged materials, repair histories, and warranty implications.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating alternative Depot Repair software should include:





Support of in-house, vendor and subcontractor repairs and exchanges.
RMAs issued for universal merchandise visibility through final disposition.
Status monitored through repair station flow for real-time visibility within support applications.
Real-time warranty tracking, tracing merchandise returned to service and/or exchanged.
Graphic repair data analysis and history logs.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Depot Repair software should include:






Creates and processes repair orders, whether internal or third-party, in a seamless process for better database
capture and workload balancing.
Tracks equipment through the repair chain, enabling enhanced spare parts inventory management and customer
service (e.g. estimated time to completion).
Captures billable time and materials automatically to speed service-to-cash cycles.
Full-loop repair history tracking facilitates enhanced compliance with contracts and industry standards.
Supports problem/repair statistical analysis to help identify engineering and sourcing issues.
Integration with the rest of the software suite allows repair orders and report status queries to be initiated from
customer contact centers, field service, field sales and warehouses, as well as the repair depot.
3. Logistics
A strong Logistics functionality allows companies to enhance asset management, wherever the product resides (e.g.,
remote warehouses, service vans, spares pools, or parts exchanges, etc.). It enables a reduction in inventory costs while
ensuring that stock levels and movements keep pace with service and sales activities. It also enables parts management
for effective field service delivery and SLA compliance. Cost management improves cash flow by streamlining and
shortening the cycles from inventory, to usage, to billing and the resulting lower logistics costs open up opportunities to
realize higher margins on products and services.
For many companies, the logistics module needs to be flexible enough to support multiple warehousing strategies, ranging
from centralized to regional repair depot, as well as service agents’ mobile inventories including kits and tools. It should
have the ability to track movements through item transaction logs, including in-transit stock. Color-coded priority queues
can also be used to expedite key orders through warehouse operations.
The most robust logistics offerings available today are designed to track key areas including component/equipment
relationships, serialized and non-serialized items, substitutes and super-sessions, costs, defective parts, vendor and
customer returns, and parts held for repair. They are also able to monitor inventories for reorder quantities, stock levels,
and reorder points utilizing sourcing rules by warehouse, including vendor ratings by grades, lead times and prices. At a
minimum, the system should also be able to support cycle counts and physical inventory adjustments.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating Logistics software should include:





A color-coded demand queue that provides a visual prioritized “to do” list.
Support of process flow through pick, pack, ship, and receive, including transaction logs.
Asset management with inventory searches by item, serial number or advanced filter.
Multi-site and multi-national spare parts inventory control.
A parts replenishment engine that automates requisitions to streamline the purchase of depleted stock.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Logistics software should include:





Visualization of demand and assets, encompassing warehouses, vans, customer sites, repair chains, spares pools,
parts exchanges and in-transit.
Improved stock level control, reduced carrying costs and expedited premiums due to out-of-stocks.
Correlated sales, service, and repair order processing with physical fulfillment.
Increased probability of first-time fix and enhanced service delivery.
Support for all warehousing strategies, including mobile inventory.
4. Sales
A strong Sales functionality ensures that the organization can continue to grow by bringing new customers into the fold. At
the very least, this functionality should be capable of consolidating and streamlining the processes that the organization
uses for selling its equipment, parts and services from quote generation through order processing, and at all points of
customer contact including outside sales, inside sales, contact center sales and field service sales. By enabling the sales
organization to leverage both sales and customer service data, smarter and more informed business decisions can be
made throughout entire customer lifecycles.
For both field sales and internal sales teams, the sales functionality should be able to provide agents with independent
access to real-time data, leveraging the service knowledgebase for convertible opportunities, short sales cycles, profitable
margins, and high close rates. These consolidated views of sales and service data will ultimately provide a much clearer
understanding of the overall operations, thereby providing management with a “bigger picture” perspective to drive
strategic decisions.
The ability of the system to automate business rules and practices, such as information sharing, forecasting and literature
fulfillment, will enable the organization’s sales team to focus on revenue generation, rather than on administrative or other
non-sales-related activities. Identified accounts, contracts, and other opportunities can then all be shared as part of a
team-based sales strategy approach. Company-specific sales methodologies can easily be modeled, with quotas attached
to different stages.
Integration with other software suite modules, such as Marketing, Contact Center and Field Service applications, provides
visibility into complete customer information, leveraging all enterprise knowledge pools to increase sales opportunities,
margins and close rates. These applications can then promp and empower the organization’s customer support and
service staffs to both up-sell and cross-sell the company’s products and services throughout their ongoing contacts with
existing customers and market prospects.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating the Sales component of the software suite should
include:





Sales and service integration for a complete perspective of the customer including configurations, service and repair
orders, invoices, contracts, returns and exchanges.
An integrated top-down sales direction and bottom-up sales process management.
Graphic pipeline management with flexible support of company-specific sales methodologies.
Contact management with rich content profiles, activity histories and synchronization to the organization’s prevailing email functionality.
Account management for automated assignment and tracking of prospects by industry, etc.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Sales software functionality should include:





Consolidated sales and service views, enabling more comprehensive business analysis, including trend charts and
win-loss analysis.
Sales planning and pipeline management that facilitates greater accuracy in revenue forecasting and, therefore,
business strategy.
Automated sales territory planning that allows the seamless transfer of information to prevent disruption in sales
cycles.
Increased sales efficiency, productivity, and close rates through automated administrative support (e.g., expense
reporting, activity and calendar management, literature fulfillment, etc.).
Greater seamless transition between sales and post-sale service.
5. Marketing
Marketing functionality provides the organization with a closed-loop solution for conducting multi-channel marketing
campaigns. The key objective of these types of programs is to transform targeted prospects into revenue-generating
customers. This functionality should be able to provide the organization with the tool it needs to cost-effectively design,
implement, and measure complex campaigns across all channels (i.e., phone, direct mail, e-mail and fax, etc.). It should
also be designed to monitor the ongoing performance of the company’s marketing programs to maximize the ultimate
return on investment.
The Marketing functionality should enable users to easily initiate programs and establish event attributes, including all
critical campaign components, such as marketing collateral (e.g. brochures, leaflets, catalogs, etc.), offers, pricing,
budgets and performance metrics. Access to customers’ service histories, contract status and warranty information, along
with other traditional information sources, enables creative identification of additional cross-sell and up-sell marketing
opportunities. Other supported functionality should include list, offering script and telemarketing management for program
execution.
According to Pollock, “Marketing is an area where many services organizations fall short without the use of a powerful tool
such as that which is included in an end-to-end solution suite. They may understand service, and they may be blessed with
a strong sales force, but even still, they typically require a great deal of help with services marketing. The good news is a
true end-to-end solution will provide them with that tool.”
The application’s “big picture view” should also enable managers to work synergistically with each marketing channel in
order to support overall campaigns with the ability to adjust channel details, such as prospect lists, scripts, budgets or
offers incentives, as necessary, to elicit the best results. Integration with other related applications should also enable
equipment and services organizations to leverage large amounts of customer information for identifying new potential
revenue sources, as well as to maximize customer loyalty and existing customer base sales-related opportunities.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating the Marketing component of the software suite
should include:





Unified support of marketing collateral, budgets, lists, notes and performance.
List management that enables import of spreadsheet and flat files, including de-duplication capabilities for
administering multiple databases.
Ability to link multiple pricing structures, discount tolerances and offers to a single marketing campaign.
Graphic script management that allows for tailored process flow development.
Telemarketing support that can be used to distribute scripts, offers and literature, as required, for any given marketing
program.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Marketing software functionality should include:





Seamless integration to field sales for lead management, and service histories for optimized list generation.
The ability to build multi-channel coordination for pronged, multi-phased programs applied across key customer touch
points.
Graphic script and campaign creation capabilities that facilitate the development and execution of programs by nontechnical users.
Collaborative capabilities that ensure tighter coordination between marketing, sales and services functions.
The ability to conduct comprehensive analyses that examine overall program costs and benefits, including conversions
and revenues, associated with campaigns for in-process execution adjustments and enhanced future planning.
6. Professional Services
The Professional Services model should be capable of supporting the management of “knowledge workers”, such as
those deployed by professional services organizations or the internal service departments of larger organizations. It should
be designed to simplify project planning, automate deployment and tracking, improve coordination and reduce operating
and administrative costs—a tall measure for a broadly-defined services offering. The application should also enable the
evaluation and monitoring of project profitability in order to both adjust plans for current projects, as well as aid in
management’s ability to more accurately project future programs.
The main purpose of the Professional Services functionality is to provide project managers and their resources (i.e.
consultants) with a universal view of all of the information available relating to ongoing projects and tasks. It should also
afford a realistic means for capturing and processing associated time and expenses. A process workflow functionality can
then be used to support company-specific approval chains for submissions.
The application should be capable of providing full project lifecycle support from quotation, through initiation, to completion.
It must also be able to capture both material and time usage, and provide resource management functionality including
appointment booking and allocated costs. Private and work-related information such as resources, time sheets, expense
reports and forecasts should all be made accessible through a unified point of interaction. In this way, both internal and
external (i.e., third-party) resources can be properly managed. To be truly effective, this component of the overall
application suite must support more than just simple job costing functionality, it must also enable the complete automation
of project deployment.
The principal features users should consider in reviewing and evaluating the Professional Services component of the
software suite should include:





Custom-tailored user views of professional services tasks and projects.
Time and expense reporting with their respective approval processes.
Unified project information including tasks, risk factors, documentation, billing schedules, skill gap analyses and
profitability reports.
Consultant orders and activities for use in engagement management.
Project collaboration enabling resources and managers to exchange information via online collaboration (e.g.,
WebEx), project forums and documents.
The principal benefits that can be realized through the use of Professional Services software functionality should include:





Ability to conduct project profitability analyses through the unification of all information related to a given project.
Resource management, including scheduling based on skills, roles and availability to increase profitable asset
utilization.
An integrated service system to cost, deploy, track and bill projects to expedite the service-to-cash cycle.
Automation of work orders, staff scheduling, logistics and parts ordering for improved operational efficiencies.
Improved competitive advantage through the utilization of the best-available project resources.
Application Extensions
Any and all of the applications that comprise the overall software suite can be augmented and supported through the use
of associated analytics, portal and mobile solutions. The ability to employ the use of these added analytic facilities can
provide highly visual, real-time analyses of exactly how the business is performing at any given time as well as over
periods of time. Customer portals can also allow access to timely and accurate information about customer account or
service orders. Integrated mobile capabilities can empower the organization’s field forces to fully participate in corporate
goals for revenue optimization, customer satisfaction and customer retention.
Summary
The importance of reverse logistics in the overall services lifecycle is critical. When selecting a CRM application, consider
the following five focus areas critical to your customers’ success:
Figure 8
The Five Focus Areas that Are Critical to
Our Customers’ Success
Reverse
Logistics
Management
Asset
Management
Mobile
Workforce
Management
The
Customer
Service
Management
Customer
Management
© 2008 Astea International
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Reverse Logistics Management
Mobile Workforce Management
Customer Management
Service Management, and
Asset Management.
Since there are many interdependencies that may exist between and among each of these areas, it makes it potentially
difficult for many companies to understand the specific cause and effect that can arise if there are problems identified
anywhere in the supply chain. However, by effectively managing the entire return process lifecycle across multiple
channels, from return/exchange authorization, through to repair, refurbish or retirement, companies can increase customer
loyalty, achieve higher asset recovery, maximize call center resources and streamline overall operations.
Any organization that strives to increase its “velocity of business” will require the tools that allow it to make actionable data
more readily accessible, thereby providing it with the agility it needs to achieve sustainable value in less time, and compete
more effectively in a growing global economy. In addition to all of the specific features and benefits associated with each of
the six software functionalities already described, an effective end-to-end solution should also offer the following additional
features in support of their reverse logistics supply chain operations:


Logistics-related Features - including costing features such as advanced vendor exchange, average costing and
serialized costing to add advanced capabilities that further support logistics operations. Additionally, a number of
procurement facilities should be included to further support streamlined workflow and increased automation.
Contract Management Capabilities - allowing organizations to benefit from improved flexibility through the use of
contract templates designed to speed and enable customer-centric contracts, and support both pricing and renewal
enhancements.
In addition to logistics and contract management, any reverse logistics management solution should also address asset
history; purchasing and receiving; pick/pack/ship tasks; returns and exchange management; repair planning and tracking;
repair/ refurbish/retire; distributed depot management; warranty and claims management; inventory management and
tracking; warehouse management; workload balancing; and spare parts management. Thus, the solution that is ultimately
chosen by the organization cannot simply be a collection of nicely packaged software modules; it must be a fully
integrated, end-to-end solution that addresses all of the key aspects and functionality of reverse logistics.
Managing reverse logistics requires a great deal of time, money, resources, tools and patience. Only by choosing an
application suite that suits your own unique business situation, can your organization truly attain the level of business
velocity that it and its customers seek.
Be sure to read the conclusion of this article in the July/August 2008 issue of Reverse Logistics where Zack describes the
remaining three components of a “best-in-class” SLM solution; namely, Sales, Marketing and Professional Services.
__________________________________________________
Zack Bergreen is Chairman and CEO, at Astea International, global leader in service management software that
addresses the unique needs of companies who manage capital equipment, mission critical assets, and human capital.
Zack can be reached at (215) 682-2500. Astea’s website is accessible at www.astea.com.