Download Five Signs of Good Service/Support Marketing

Five Signs of Good Service/Support
Marketing
by Al Hahn
I love marketing—especially service/support marketing. I also love
selling. To me, they are both wonderful; just different. To share my
passion, I’d like to explore the visible signs of quality
service/support marketing. This way, you’ll be better equipped to
recognize it when you see it. By the way, each of the five areas
below contains more than one sign, but 23 signs just didn’t sound
like a good title to me, so I cheated a little.
Crafted Services, The First Sign
As marketers tend to do, I will approach the subject via the
Marketing Mix, or the “Four P’s” of marketing.
Let’s begin with Product, which, in our case, is usually a
service/support contract offering. Good marketers will have
wonderfully crafted service products. Define “wonderful,” you
may well say. To a marketer, a wonderful service is one that meets
customer needs and wants very well. Service/support that fits
customers well are easier to sell (another sign of good design).
Another tip-off to good marketing is that the service portfolio has
some unique offerings. It is easy to fall into the common pattern of
three levels of services, often named bronze, silver, and gold.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but really
good marketers know that the number of different services should
follow something called market segmentation. Each segment
defines a group of like-minded customers who need a particular
selection of service features. There is no magic number of
segments; it depends upon your particular market. Companies like
Hewlett-Packard, often characterized by great service marketing,
sometimes have more than three varieties of services to tempt
discriminating buyers. They also may offer some truly different
packages, ignoring snoozing competitors who have missed the
emergence of a new market segment.
Pricing, A True Distinction
Pricing is where it may be easiest to recognize something
unusually good going on. Over the past years as a consultant, I
have become aware that we tend to underprice our services. Good
service marketers don’t make this mistake. They price services to
their fullest value. This leads to another characteristic—valuebased pricing. This is a sophisticated technique that requires a
seasoned marketer at the top of her/his craft. It is much more
difficult to pull off, but it has the seemingly impossible
combination of higher prices and happier customers as benefits.
This marketing wizardry is too complex to explain in this column,
but it is highly recommended.
Discounting, while not, strictly speaking, a pricing technique is
worth noting here, as it dramatically affects prices. Good marketers
will understand this and attempt to install an earned-discount
program that allows customers with multiple-year service contracts
and big (service/support) spenders the best deals. This system
rewards the best customers instead of the best negotiators. It also is
consistent and fair to all your customers since any customer can
get the same deal if they meet the criteria. Random discounting can
destroy value-based pricing and earned discounts help to preserve
pricing integrity. Good marketers also will be evident in smaller
discounts overall and improved margins.
Channel Programs
Place is the confusing “P” of the Marketing Mix. In our industries,
this means channels, as in distributors, resellers, and now the
Internet. Since three “P’s” and a “C” didn’t have a melodious,
catchy sound to it, we use Place as the fourth “P” instead. A welldesigned marketing program will have the other three “P’s”
implemented to match the channel. This means that reseller service
programs have different features, different prices, and different
promotions.
Good marketers have carefully designed channel programs that fit
the needs of each channel. This means that your new Internet
services cannot be just warmed-over standard programs. If you are
in two-tier distribution, it means that distributors need a pricing
level that allows them to make some margin, too. Good marketers
understand this and have programs crafted to match their channels.
The pricing if channel programs also takes into account the need
for markups and yet still produces margins for both the vendor and
their channel partners.
Promotion
Often called marcom, short for marketing communications,
promotion includes sales tools, such as brochures, data sheets,
presentations, your Web site, advertising, and public relations.
Good marketers will produce good tools. Services are intangible
and this creates a greater need for tangible tools to help make them
real to customers and easier to sell. Brochures need to convey
overall service capabilities, position services, and generate
credibility.
Data sheets need to help prospects understand service programs
and direct them to their best choice. Advertising may create
interest and PR may provide credibility. Good marketers
understand these tools and know how to craft them. Other tools,
such as custom spreadsheets, may help salespeople demonstrate
the value of services. Marketing organizations that invest heavily
in promotion are on the right track for services.
Internal Selling, the Most Important Sign
The single, most significant killer of service programs is the sales
force. When they don’t accept the validity of a new service, it dies.
The best service marketing organizations understand this and put
considerable effort (60-80% of efforts) into selling internally. They
launch new services in the same manner as launching new tangible
manufactured products. The best marketers, in fact, position and
sell service within the entire company and sell it internally to all
other organizations. They help the company to better understand
service and help service to get needed resources.
Because of its overall effect, this may be the most important trait
of good service marketing. Failure to do this may negatively
impact the entire service organization regardless of good execution
of all other actions. It can impact the ability to deliver services as
well as sell them.
So I have noted five areas to check for signs of good services
marketing. Take a look around and see how your company and
others measure up. This column could be used as a high-level selfassessment. If you don’t like what you find, it may be time to call
for help. If you find many good signs, give your marketers some
well-deserved recognition. They’ve earned it.