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Computer maker Lenovo is going all out to ‘WoW’ Indian customers. The company is setting up exclusive service centers for laptops across 15 cities in India. Three of these started functioning this week in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.
‘”We want to be recognized as the No. 1 computer maker. We have identified that service and support to our customers are the strategic direction that our company should take. When people think of their best experience with a computer maker, they should think of us,” said Steve Culhane and Sudhir Puthran, Senior VP, Service and Support in the Asia-Pacific and Japan regions, and VP for Service and Support for Lenovo told CRN during an exclusive interaction on Wednesday.
The centers are the result of internal brainstorming which led to a resolution within the company that ‘Everything must start from customer satisfaction. Starting anywhere else will be a wrong start’’.
So, how will Lenovo ‘wow’ the customer?
First, the company plans to have pick-up and delivery vans going around the cities twice a day. Customers can also leave their machines at designated drop centers to be picked up by Lenovo service personnel, or they could also carry in their laptops into the service centers, which would function 9 am to 9 pm. ‘‘Customers will have a choice of ways in which to reach Lenovo.’’
Second, these centers would give customers a consistent quality of service and a touch and feel of the Lenovo brand. When a customer walks in with a problem machine, Lenovo engineers would screen the machines immediately and pass it on for repairs. But the company would strive to get it right on even the softer issues. ‘‘Things like the token system, the coffee served, waiting time, etc., can all cause the ‘wow’.’’
The centers would go beyond offering warranty service. Lenovo plans to introduce service packs and enhancements as well as ‘protection services’ for components that can be damaged easily but which are not covered by the standard warranty.
Going forward, the company plans to introduce more services and consulting-type activities over the next 6-9 months. ‘‘Eventually, we will get to using artificial intelligence, as well as technologies for remote, web-based support’’.
But the service centres are a work in progress. ‘‘We are trying to understand the consumer profile and build services and support that suits them. To be No.1, we have to go that extra step,’’ Culhane said.
‘‘We will measure customer response and analyse it on a weekly, perhaps even daily, basis. If customers don’t say ‘wow’, then we will take it that they are not happy.’’
The exclusive service centers would be run not by Lenovo’s channel business partners but by franchisees, whose investments the company says it will protect over a period of time. Lenovo, however, has 29 other Lenovo-approved centres, and has a target to establish 75 such centers in all. ‘‘All the expansion of the service initiative will be through our channel partners. 15 channel partners and five neutral partners have already signed up,’’ Puthran said.
Not wanting to have any loose ends in its bid to please the customer, Lenovo plans to focus on growing channel coverage and channel-friendly policies. ‘‘We will measure not only customer satisfaction with our service, but we will also measure partner satisfaction. An important issue for channel partners, for instance, is how quickly a vendor pays them. We will look into all these aspects as well’’.
For its enterprise customers, Lenovo plans to continue to work with IBM to ‘‘make it easy’’ for them. ‘‘Lenovo has a five-year service relationship with IBM for service. This relationship will end in two years. IBM has done a great job for us, and we plan to continue with the arrangement. But if for some reason it does not work, then Lenovo will see what’s the best we can do to ensure that those IBM resources are not lost. ‘‘These are highly skilled people. Nobody would want to lose them,’’ Culhane said.
Asked why some key people had left Lenovo to go back to IBM, Culhane said that the reason was that the two companies had different business models, different cultures. ‘‘Let’s be clear about this: Lenovo is no IBM. I have great respect for IBM. But our business models are different. IBM is a high-margin, low-volume business whereas Lenovo is a high-volume, low-margin business. We have different cultures. Our approach to business is different. We are about change. A lot of people can get uncomfortable with that.’
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