The struggle to explain best value to a professional buyer is difficult in any business, but for compressor servicing and support it's essential.
Compressor maintenance service change outlines hidden value
It's a story most businesses can tell, a new buyer comes in to a clients business and they purely focus on reducing costs. A contract based upon minimising value can remove cost, but it isn't necessarily the right option for the customer. The challenge is that unless you give the customer the choice, the chances are you'll lose their business as the buyer is just doing their job. Even if they didn't understand the value of the Cambs Compressors service contract.
Moving away taught us both a valuable lesson
Like many businesses, what you do, how you do it and why you do it often 'just the way you do it!' The trouble is with this approach is that the value it delivers a client is almost impossible to quantify. So when a long standing client moved away, the pain was real – we hated losing them! However, what we didn't know is that in moving away they came to appreciate the value we added above and beyond our competitors.
Here's why they returned
Speed of reaction, even out of hours
Our office based support team, emergency host of hours support is literally a phone call away. Anyone answering can access the customers profile, understand their compressed air estate and access the last service schedules and advisory notes.
Knowledge, experience of product
Most of our field engineers are highly experience, but if they come across a problem they can video conference their colleagues and have access to decades of experience in a second. Whether this is a product query, a symptom or root cause, the answer is accessed because of the team’s knowledge, experience of the products we supply.
Survey and detailed understanding site/location their system
Every site is different, it may be an infrastructure we've inherited or that's been extended multiple times. Understanding the location and compressed air system is a critical factor in dealing with risks and failures. The site records are documented in detail, and accessible within seconds.
Faster to solve problems
All the documenting of an individual clients compressed air estate, maintenance regime and usage takes time. However this investment and effort provides the vital information to diagnose issues. Having them documented also enables all the engineers to access any previous issues for future reference.
Proactive solutions to avoid potential issues
Once an issue is logged and fixed, the learnings are shared and the system can be searched for clients with the same products, usage, environmental similarities, etc. This means issues that may be predicted can be managed proactively.
Compressed air is typically the beating heart of the majority of manufacturing businesses. So when a system fails in this high pressured environment, the value quickly becomes apparent over any costs saved.
