After-sales management

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The borrowed from the English term after-sales management and sales follow-management refers to all measures of marketing used by manufacturers and service providers (including commercial enterprises to be taken) to after a successful deal or sell the customer to its own product , the To bind one's own service , one's own brand (s) or one's own business.

The after-sales management wants to confirm the customer's purchase decision retrospectively , encourage them to make repeat and additional purchases, increase customer satisfaction and secure long-term customer loyalty .

Since after-sales services often generate a higher margin than new business, professional after-sales management can make a lasting contribution to increasing customer value and the profitability of the company.

classification

After-sales management is a sub-area of customer relationship management (CRM), i.e. the maintenance of all customer relationships. Furthermore, after-sales management is to be classified as a sub-step in the sales process, which ideally leads to a new pre-sales phase.

aims

After-sales management emerged from the knowledge that the customer relationship does not end with the conclusion of the transaction, but rather continues over the entire useful life of a product, article or service (principle: "After the purchase is before the purchase").

Using this period for additional marketing efforts in order to increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is the main goal of after-sales marketing. Customer service , warranty work and the further support of the customer by the salesperson (sales representative) are typical tasks of after-sales management. From the point of view of trade psychology , the main aim is to achieve a post-purchase consonance through post-purchase support for customers and to avoid post-purchase dissonance.

In addition, manufacturers and dealers hope to gain more information about customer requirements, customer satisfaction and market trends through after-sales marketing. This means that knowledge and experience from after-sales marketing also flow into the planning, production and marketing of future products, services and business ideas.

Instruments

After-sales management primarily uses the points of contact between sales , your own service organization and the customer that arise after the purchase of a product or the use of a service . These are service and maintenance , procurement of spare parts, repairs and complaints . These opportunities are used to interest the customer in further offers:

  • Additional products or services,
  • similar products or services,
  • new products or upgrades,
  • Customer magazines or newsletters,
  • Membership in customer club.

The most frequently used instruments are face-to-face meetings, telephone marketing , mailings by post, giveaways , competitions , i. H. the instruments of classic direct marketing . But newer marketing instruments are also increasingly being used: e-mail , SMS , Internet communities, incentives , events .

opportunities

After-sales management offers the advertiser great opportunities. The modern industrial society shows a high level of market saturation in almost all areas of demand and consumption . Classic advertising measures are nowhere near enough to survive in certain markets. The sectors of telecommunications, automobiles, insurance, financial services, travel and many more are hotly contested.

The primary advantage of after-sales management is the fact that an existing customer base is processed with individual instruments from the marketing tools, i. H. you know the target group, usually even with directly evaluable data such as place of residence, telephone number, date of birth, etc. There is no need to obtain this core data, and according to the old advertising rule "It is easier to keep an existing customer than to win a new one" Reduced costs for advertising campaigns that are spread too widely and unspecifically to acquire new customers.

However, after-sales management should not be confused with customer care . This is only part of the measures, an equally important part is the generation of additional business ( cross-selling ). For example, after taking out car insurance, the customer B. can expect further offers such as life or accident insurance from the insurer. It is also common today at most automobile workshops to contact the customer after regular inspections and B. to offer additional TÜV or tire storage service. The same is true of tour operators who regularly offer their clients travel offers tailored to their customers' personal tastes.

Another goal of after-sales management is to avoid or limit cognitive dissonances on the consumer side, especially in the case of high-priced goods. The consumer's decision in favor of a comparatively expensive car on the grounds of the advertised or perceived relatively higher quality compared to a cheaper product can, for example, lead to cognitive dissonances if the actual quality does not correspond to the advertised. Since this can lead to persistent dissatisfaction on the part of the customer (e.g. due to pressure to justify in the family or among friends), the seller tries to minimize this through suitable measures (e.g. through better service, image-oriented communication measures).

Risks

As with all other management instruments, after-sales management is also essentially fraught with the problem of over-information or the “advertising glut”. The more consumption-oriented a consumer is, the more he will be affected by after-sales measures and the lower the chance of the individual measures to get through to him and trigger the desired purchase impulse. The more competitive a market or consumer group is, the less chance of short-term success with after-sales marketing becomes. In this area, success can only be achieved with well-measured and above all constant activity. It is important to bear in mind that an essential component of after-sales marketing is based on the quality of the product or service: a bad product or service is rarely used a second time, regardless of how intensively it is After-sales measures are.

Remarks

literature

  • Karim Barkawi: Successful with After Sales Services: Business strategies for service management and spare parts logistics. 1st edition. Springer, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-540-27999-7 .
  • Michael Baumbach: After-sales management in mechanical and plant engineering. Transfer Verlag, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3-86016-137-7 .
  • Michael Baumbach, Alexander T. Stampfl: After Sales Management. Marketing - logistics - organization. Carl Hanser, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-446-21902-1 .
  • Kurt Jeschke: Post-purchase marketing. Customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in consumer goods markets. Dissertation . Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-631-47748-1 .
  • Werner Pepels: Customer Service Policy - The Instruments of After Sales Marketing. Verlag Vahlen, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-8006-2398-6 .
  • Werner Pepels: After Sales Service: Making business relationships profitable. 2., ext. Edition. Symposion Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-3-936608-88-5 .
  • Hans-Otto Schenk: Psychology in Commerce. 2nd Edition. Oldenbourg, Munich / Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-486-58379-3 .
  • Roland Schütze: Customer satisfaction: after-sales marketing in industrial markets. Gabler, Wiesbaden 1994, ISBN 3-409-13811-0

See also