Improving Total Service Experience, Fraud Prevention Are Focus of Service World 2008
Service Leaders from Some of the World’s Top Retailers and Manufacturers Gather at Two-Day Conference in Nation’s Capital to Share Best Practices, Solution Strategies for Post-Sale Service
Fairfax, VA ... Sept. 9, 2008 – Top service professionals from many of the world’s leading retail and manufacturing companies gathered August 20 to 22 in Washington, D.C., at Service World 2008 hosted by ServiceBench, the leading provider of web-based service management solutions and a subsidiary of N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, Inc. (NEW). The leaders, representing industries such as consumer electronics, home appliances, computing and food services, shared success stories and strategies on improving service quality, maximizing product performance and decreasing operational costs. Major topics addressed at the conference included leveraging technology systems to deliver cost-effective fraud prevention and total service lifecycle solutions.
“Each year Service World brings together industry leaders in the delivery of service to talk about the future of the industry, share best practices and learn more about ServiceBench technology,” said John Estrada, chief operating officer of ServiceBench. “This year was no different and our teams walked away from the event with new ideas to advance our technology to better meet the needs of the industry and our partners learned how ServiceBench technology solutions can help with many of the challenges they face today.”
“Service World allowed me to interact with other key leaders in non-competing industries to exchange best practices in both systems and warranty/service operations,” said Bill Allen, manager of service operations with Viking Range Corporation. “I found the experience instrumental in forming new progressions within Viking Range Corporation.”
At the event, Tony Nader, president and CEO of NEW, discussed the important role ServiceBench has in providing solutions to manufacturers and also within his organization by leveraging service expertise and technology to support NEW’s development of total product lifecycle solutions.
During break-out sessions at Service World, the focus was on driving excellence throughout the post-sale service chain. Key trends that emerged from the discussions include the following:
• Future service management needs: System integration and technical standardization of claims and parts management to increase visibility and provide data mining capabilities throughout the service organization.
• Industry benchmarking: Manufacturers in the consumer electronics industry are moving to Net Promoter scoring for customer loyalty surveys. This allows benchmarking to take place against not only others within the CE industry, but also against world class organizations across other industries. Appliance manufacturers are very interested in this methodology and will be working with their survey partners to investigate it as a future enhancement to measuring customer loyalty.
• Fraud detection metrics and methods: Organizations are doing more with less people, and therefore there is a high need to rely more on data systems to catch fraud. Systems that help track returned parts are a great asset in validating customer problems and detecting fraud. Companies that implement fraud detection systems and programs report financial savings and a strong return on investment.
• Manufacturer warranties: Industry is moving towards implementing shorter warranties and more product exchange- type warranties instead of the product repair service model. The move away from product repair, participants said, is due to a combination of a shrinking supply of repair vendors and increasing parts and labor costs.
ServiceBench service management solutions were identified during discussions by retail and manufacturing leaders throughout the conference as providing high value in helping them address critical business and customer service challenges across their service organization. ServiceBench applications automate the service chain in areas such as claims processing, claims recovery, service call scheduling, field service monitoring, parts ordering, customer surveys, fraud detection and more.
“In a nutshell, Service World 2008 was awesome,” said Jenny House project manager with LG Electronics. “This single event educated me tremendously on all aspects of the service industry and the powerful package ServiceBench has to offer. The satisfaction of improving businesses such as ours and others worldwide must be a wonderful feeling.”
For more information about how ServiceBench solutions can help your organization, please call 1-866-6-SBENCH ext.6 (1-866-672-3624 ext. 6) or email sales@servicebench.com.
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About ServiceBench
ServiceBench, a subsidiary of N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, Inc. (NEW), is the leading provider of technology-based service management solutions that generate profit and competitive advantage for U.S. manufacturers and retailers. ServiceBench helps many of the world’s leading companies transform post-sale service activities, such as management of service calls, field service, parts, claims and service contracts, into seamless, integrated and customer-focused processes. The ServiceBench on-demand system enables service transactions between manufacturers or retailers and their network of parts suppliers, distributors and service providers. ServiceBench has been recognized by Deloitte as one of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America and listed by Manufacturing Business Technology magazine as one of 40 emerging software vendors. Based in Fairfax, Va., ServiceBench also has an office in Columbia, Md. For more information please visit www.servicebench.com.
About N.E.W. Customer Service Companies, Inc. (NEW)
NEW is the leading provider of extended service plans, buyer protection services and product support, providing coverage to more than 150 million consumers. Founded in 1983, with headquarters in Sterling, Va., NEW provides award-winning post-sale consumer care for leading retailers, consumer service providers, wireless carriers and financial services firms. For more information, please visit NEW at www.newcorp.com or call 1-800 WHAT’S NEW (1-800-942-8763).
Media Contact
Kristina Messner
Focused Image (for ServiceBench and NEW)
703-739-8809
kmessner@focusedimage.com
