Opinion: Strategies for Driving OEM Service, Aftermarket Growth

After years of focusing on supply chain and operational initiatives, equipment makers are now turning their sights to aftermarket and service revenue growth. This is a welcome shift, as tending to existing customers’ needs is critical for a healthy growth strategy for any company.OEM service

It also is no surprise, since service and aftermarket revenue is more profitable than sales of original equipment, and also since cross-selling and upselling are generally easier than finding new customers.

Vivek Joshi
Joshi
This may sound obvious, but without a solid understanding of customer needs and behaviors, revenue generation initiatives are doomed for failure. To help OEMs with theirs, here are four best practices for sales, marketing and manufacturing leaders to follow:

• Know your customers: OEMs must understand how customers are utilizing their products and services. Awareness of customer adoption and usage will allow for improved account management opportunities. Developing customer knowledge during the asset life cycle can inform creation of new, innovative products and services that can be valuable to customers.

• Map everything: For most manufacturers, customer data is siloed, dispersed and sometimes simply not accessible to service, sales and marketing teams. In most cases data is shared via spreadsheets that can never be updated or shared in real time. Also, manual processes tend to drive manual errors and accidental data deletion. IT departments at large organizations and big consulting firms provide an alternative to the status quo when it comes to cleansing and organizing old data. The downside (other than time and cost) is that once the project is completed, new data rarely flows into the new architecture. After only a few months, you’re back where you started.

• Proactive selling: Don’t wait for the phone to ring, but don’t just make random courtesy calls. Proactive selling is key to engage with customers, uncover business opportunities and beat your competitors. The purchasing behavior of B2B customers is changing; they expect the same level of service and engagement that they enjoy as consumers every day. Don’t wait for the phone to ring.