Smartphone Post-sales Service: A New Strategy to Win the Battle for Customers

In a world where smartphones have become as important as wallets—where customers rely on them for everything from calls to social media or keeping up with news and checking-in at airports—poor service, such as slow turnarounds for repairs or unavailable loan phones, results in a frustrating customer experience that could lead to defection from the service provider.

Accenture delves into its research and client experience to show how post-sales device service can serve as the winning edge—a smart strategy to winning the battle for smartphone customers.

According to Accenture research, smartphone adoption is exploding. And with feature phone owners switching to smartphones, first-time smartphone purchasers represent a sizeable share of the market, of which nearly 25 percent are more than 55 years old. Hence, first-time purchasers will want and expect outstanding post-sales support.

Accenture has found that operators are on the front line of service when customers face an issue with their smartphones. With contact rates for smartphones climbing due to device complexity where repair issues cannot be resolved through standard automated solutions, a skilled technician interacting with a customer in person is still the highest quality solution. As a result, without changes in support models, increased customer complaints will drive exponential growth in costs.

Key findings from Accenture research and client experience has shown that:

• By 2014, 84 percent of device sales in mature markets will be smartphones.
   
• Smartphone mobile subscribers account for more than 50 percent subscriptions in 2011.
   
• More than 40 percent feature phone owners are projected to switch to smartphones with their next purchase.
   
• If there is an issue with a smartphone, 25 to 50 percent of customers will contact their operator first—this has increased the contact rate for smartphones by 50 percent in the past two years.
   
• Smartphones customers are five times more likely to complain about repair issues than they are about any complaint driver.

Because smartphones are so central to owners’ lives, they expect fast resolution of device issues within 24 to 48 hours, including access to a loan phone—failing which, customer satisfaction will drive down to an extent that can spur defection to competitors.
 
Hence, Accenture recommends:

• Post-sales service as a competitive weapon: Due to competition, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate on the basis of tariffs. A more powerful source of differentiation is post-sales service as part of a customer-experience focused strategy where an operator’s ability to quickly resolve device issues turns an inevitable cost into a cornerstone of customer retention prowess.
   
• A holistic approach to customer support: Because customers look for support in different channels such as, support online to contacting a call center or a nearby store, troubleshooting and support must be consistent and standardized. Accenture recommends the following seven dimensions for a holistic approach to creating a winning customer support model:
   
  1. Configuration.
  2. Organizational effectiveness. 
  3. Business process/management practices.
  4. Information technology.
  5. Performance management.
  6. Collaboration.
  7. Corporate assurance.

 
In this report, read more about the seven-pronged holistic approach Accenture has defined to drive behavioral change by embedding the crucial customer experience strategy of post-sales service as a new weapon in the battle for customers.