Can Software Make Your Service Department More Profitable?

Blog, Service Contract Management

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Last updated Mar 16, 2020 at 1:02PM | Published on Nov 22, 2012 | Blog, Service Contract Management

More companies today see service departments as profit centers instead of cost centers.

In fact, 55 percent of U.S. organizations have that outlook, according to Service Council President Bill Pollock in an article on Service Management Online’s website.

For field services firms, delivering profitable services means understanding that you measure profit and adjust costs to align to it. To do this, your service management software needs to price, cost and measure profit on each work order.

Services that drive profitable revenue must be studied, nurtured and marketed with campaigns to existing customers and in new markets. Having software that introduces forecasts, sales cycle management, and marketing tools is integral to profit center management.

Services agencies also must position themselves as business partners instead of just providers, Pollock explains in the Service Management Online article. Building deeper industry relationships will lead to natural increases in customer satisfaction and retention.

“You’ve got to enter into a partnership with them, and it cannot just be lip service, it’s got to be a real partnership,” Pollock says. “You’ve got to understand what their needs are. You have to understand what happens to them when their systems fail or when just a device fails. You have to understand the pain they are going through when things don’t work the way they were promised they were going to work.”

Source: Service Management Online, October 2012