Service Benchmarking

The service operation has to be heard and understood in the Boardroom, if it is to achieve its primary role of business development (revenue and profit growth) through feedback from the customer to the business. This close alliance with the customer is often referred to as customer intimacy and recognises the role of the customers in helping the supplier to continually improve product quality performance, and increase the relevance and usability of the products to themselves and the customers. The best way of achieving customer intimacy is to gain recognition from the Board that the service operation is not simply a provider of good service and satisfied customers but will generate and contribute to the profit of the business.

Steve Downton, Downton Service Management Consultants Ltd, Noventum Group

A number of key trends have emerged from 2009, not least of which has been the emergence of a serious lack of relevant operational measurements.  Coming out of the recession has highlighted for many that the availability of reliable external data on customer needs and how to deliver to them is very limited. With a secondary challenge on how appropriate are measures carried over from the pre-recession era.

Senior executives are well aware of the impact of a measurement system on employees and managers.  If a business wants to improve the way it is viewed by its customers, a strong focus on measuring what those customers care about most, would seem to be a good idea.  Most companies, however, measure what is easy to measure, or what is important for them to measure, regardless of its impact on customers.

Noventum offer the opportunity to participate in the "Cost-to-Serve" Benchmark.  The objective is to provide pragmatic help to enable companies to steer a path out of recession, back to growth and to provide insight into how optimised your service operation is when compared to peers (potential competition).

This benchmark has been designed as an annual event to provide long-term insight into progression and developing trends in the industry, providing the ability to compare historical results with current results to identify strategic shifts. Specific benefits include:

• Visibility of true costs and capacity to allow manageable growth
• An external reference point for your own operation
• Insight into how service operations are creating low cost high value operations with reduced volumes
• Insight into trends
• Indication of the measures that are being used

The scope of the current study will be product related services, to reduce the time taken completing the questionnaire, increase its relevance and to ensure much easier comparison and highlight the merging of these types of service offering.

The Benchmark will measure around 50 key performance indicators - identified as the most important measures by a working party of 25 service professionals (representing a good cross selection of interested parties). We will also include trend information gathered during the benchmark.

Data will be collected on-line using an easy-to-use questionnaire (circa 45 minutes) with output in the form of a confidential report for each individual participant charting their own company results against the other participants.

The time taken to execute the benchmark will be minimal and feedback is planned for the end of March 2010.

The report will present your data, as shown below, to enable a rapid and easy comparison of your result with the rest of the participants. Each result graph will be described from information gathered across the whole participant group. We will also provide an executive summary as part of the output for dissemination within the business.

Summary of content is as follows:

1. Preface
2. Background
3. Introduction
4. Understanding and using the report
5. Executive Summary
6. Results
   Section I - Measures from a Financial Perspective
   Section II - Measures from a Customer and Stakeholder Perspective
   Section III - Measures from an Internal Business Perspective
   Section IV - Measures from Staff Development and Growth Perspective

The increasing need for innovation to drive growth in service means that:

• A broadening and developing role of service coupled with close attention to performance is now required to survive
• Knowing how your services compare to others in the industry is key to your company's survival and growth in the current economy.

Benchmarking is becoming an important mechanism for improving business operations. To provide some background, this article will illustrate key service aspects, including results from our latest benchmark, published at the start of the year.

Cost-to-Serve Subscription
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Please download the attachment below for more detailed information on the benchmark and to view an example of the report.

Many companies are continuously working to improve their service organisation; like transforming from a product into a customer driven service organisation; standardise service propositions and processes, improve effectiveness and efficiency.

Over the last four years Service Management Magazine and Downton Service Management Consultants have conducted a review of the attitudes on mobilisation, to determine the opinion of the marketplace and to explore the experience of those already using these solutions, to gain an impression of the rate of change.  The research has shown a dramatic shift in favour of mobile solutions, and a poll at a mobile conference of 30 companies in April indicated that 35% are now onto their second and 25% are onto their third mobile solution.

The Service Management Benchmark Study aims to provide participants with usable information and insight into what measures are really relevant in today’s changing environment. Hear the results of the ground-breaking research at this seminar and come and discuss what it means for you and your operation.