Maintenance: why to sell it - supplier perspective

On my previous post,” Maintenance: why to sell it – customer perspective”, I shared with you my opinion on how to identify the customer needs on a deeper level.  As you saw I just let the topic open by avoiding giving you a selling recipe and by offering you a relevant opening for a question list. My opinion is only behaving like this, being genuinely interested on the customer business you may play a consultant role and offer a customised service solution.  

Today I propose you to debate the answer to the WHY question from the supplier perspective.
Let’s structure the supplier needs on 4 levels:
1.       Customer relationship
Maintenance supposes a frequency based relationship, you meet the customer on a regular basis, at least once/year; do it in a proper way and you will:
·         discover early new purchase needs;
·         give the customer peace of mind, by showing him the current vehicle status and by preventing major breakdowns;
·         strengthen the relationship and your image by supporting the customer to operate his fleet in the most effective way – praise him for the good things he does and offer him optimizations solutions on improvement areas
2.       Employee satisfaction
We have here the biggest barrier to overcome; technicians usually see Maintenance as a low level job; help them understand the impact of their job. When I was school principal I faced the same issue with the cleaning personnel. Until I told them their job is not to make hallways or classrooms shining, but to keep the kids healthy. That was the moment they stopped asking me how to do their job; they knew how to do it because they understood why to do it. Follow my next post for more about how to motivate technicians to perform the Maintenance job.
3.       Business operations
 Maintenance helps you:
·         plan the operations better, because it’s a routine job with clear time & parts reservation
·         sell more services, because you may find additional jobs
·         develop more services, because you identify new needs on an early basis
4.       Cash flow:
Being a frequency based relationship Maintenance helps you control the cash in either by pre-planning the jobs, either by signing Maintenance contracts.
What else would you add in order to be able to offer the best tailored Maintenance program for your customers?

Next post:  Maintenance: how to perform it – lean perspective