Mitsubishi faces service management with smart 24/7 technology

Product service has grown from an afterthought to a strategic element of the business. The reason: Manufacturers must differentiate themselves as their products become evermore commoditized.

Invariably, consumers are going to experience some product-related problems. The service battle, in large part, is determining what kind of experience they'll have when that occurs. In the balance is brand loyalty over time, and it's as true for appliances as it is automobiles, toasters, and televisions.

At its best, the impact of well-managed services drives not only the bottom line, but product design as well.

“We're in a very competitive business,' says Glen Yamashita, director of sales operations for Mitsubishi Digital's line of flat-screen televisions. “We're also very lean. We manage all warranty service with two people, two temps, and a very small staff. We needed a service system that was robust enough to give us the tools and the technology that would ensure quality support to our network of third-party service providers, and could obtain data to quickly guide any corrective action to improve performance in the product line.”

The Irvine, Calif.-based consumer products company turned to ServiceBench to support the proper service strategies. ServiceBench is a modular, Web-hosted application that covers post-sale services, including service call, field service, parts, repair, and warranty management; and professional services development for optimizing overall service management.

“Other solutions did a relatively good job of processing claims, but in driving the business and improving quality, one element of significant value that ServiceBench has is real-time reporting capabilities on claims,” says Yamashita.

“With the others you had to wait for month-end. With ServiceBench, it's 24/7,” he continues. “This allows you to get information on service issues on the initial call.

ServiceBench also enables early detection of problems with wider implications. “As soon as we have data related to a specific product, we can make improvements on the fly in production,” explains Yamashita. ServiceBench has become an integral component of the company's product quality program to target and drive improvement initiatives.

“We designed ServiceBench to deliver the best service experience possible for the consumer,” says Michael Dering, ServiceBench CEO. Knowing that everyone hates to wait at home for a repairman, says Dering, “It's especially aggravating when they don't have the right part so they have to come back again.”

ServiceBench was founded in 2000 by three principals who were working as contract programmers to help manufacturers with their service programs.

“They discovered it was an ecosystem problem common to all manufacturers,” Dering says, so they developed a hosted solution that addressed a broad spectrum of issues plaguing service delivery in general. “Not every application is well-suited to Web hosting, but this one is,” he asserts.