CRM Service Process Solutions

Utilising proprietary service management systems to their full potential is a contentious topic for management teams. Adding to the debate is the relatively small number of companies (less than 40%) with proprietary service solutions in place. Partnering and consolidation is occurring within the vendor community across all parts of the service offering, with scheduling and mobile solutions as just two examples. Many more companies are considering the value that integrated service solutions offer to their businesses, despite the lack of capital available. Vendors offering Software as a Service solution, combined with significant reductions in the cost of the software are encouraging companies to the advantage of service within the whole business. Given this backdrop, the purpose of the survey was to determine trends and the options companies are considering for the future.

Participating companies come from a breadth of industries, with a predominance from manufacturing, medical and information technology. Most of the company representatives performed service operation and marketing roles and represented extensive service experience, with an average of between 10 and 20 years, reflecting strong awareness of the changes that service operations have gone through, and will need to accept in time to come. One telling finding was the need to gain consistency of service across large and small countries and across the large geography of Europe, when the largest percentage of staff were field operatives. Having set out the composition of the participant companies, the survey then examined the benefits and issues that participants believed were relevant when examining service management systems and their application.