Published: June 30, 2016
Innovation and new product launches are key growth drivers for successful technology companies. Marketing teams are well versed at taking ideas from concept through product, pricing, promotion and distribution strategies to commercialize with the perfect positioning to drive sales growth. Then, complaints start rolling in and warranty or support costs blow-out the budget. What went wrong?
In Proactive Worldwide’s experience with helping our technology clients with their market entry strategies and benchmarking product performance, the answer often resides in a forgotten consideration; namely, the warranty and support (W&S) strategy.
Consider two situations we run across that surprise our clients when they look into it:
| Situation | Business Implication |
| Premium positioned products with low cost strategic approaches to W&S | · Underserving the premium customer segment · Low customer experience / engagement scores · Low repeat purchase rates |
| Value position products (relatively low price positions) with premium approaches to W&S | · Over-serving the value customer segment · Mixed customer experience / engagement scores · Lower turnover than planes, less volume sold mid-term |
Proactive Worldwide has extensive experience creating custom, comparative warranty and support benchmarks across numerous products and services in the technology industry in both consumer and commercial segments. Our deliverables cover both customer facing guarantees and internal efficiency/cost metrics. This provides actionable insights and a comprehensive view of the market from unpublished data to improve your competitive position.
When was the last time you benchmarked to ensure your W&S strategy isn’t misaligned with your product strategies and that you are not over- or under-investing in this key, customer satisfaction and experience driving capability?
Proactive’s Custom Benchmarking Service provides a fact-based foundation and external reference points for where and how to improve. If you’re preparing a business plan, growth strategy or questioning current performance, contact us – we can help!
