1. How much do warranty claims cost us? (See “True Cost…”)
While this may seem like a no-brainer, it’s amazing how many manufacturers we talk to that don’t have a clear idea of the financial cost of their warranty services. Sure, they have an idea of how much – often as an estimated percentage of revenue – but without a true understanding of the cost of your warranty claims, you cannot effectively take steps to reduce those costs.
2. How long does it take us to resolve a claim?
The longer a claim takes to resolve, the more it costs the company. Having a benchmark for days to complete and measuring results toward that goal can help to reduce overall costs. By monitoring resolution time, and making adjustments when trends uncover reasons for delays, you can save money and improve customer service.
3. What is causing our issues? (See “True Cost…”)
It’s easy to get so bogged down in taking care of claim after claim that you don’t seem to have time to analyze the metrics and trends of all of the claims that your company works. Visibility into the causes of your claims (defect codes, production location,, etc.) allows you to address the underlying causes, reducing the volume of claims and the cost to your company.
4. How are we doing this year compared to last year?
Sometimes your software solution can do a good enough job of helping you manage your current claims, acting as a to-do list. While this tends to lead to reactive service (the last one who called is the next fire to put out) it does not provide a simple way to monitor trends over time. Most companies are just focused on working claims but they don’t have the right tools to know how they’re doing at reducing the claims over time. As a company, the goal should be to improve customer service, and this can only be accomplished by monitoring metrics.
5. What do our customers say about us after we resolve a claim? (This is a big one!)
Warranty claims are all about customer service. While minimizing the impact on operations by reducing the number and cost of claims should be a priority, providing exceptional customer service should be your top priority. And the only way to ensure that you are is to know what those customers say about your company’s service after the issue has been resolved. While there are a number ways to accomplish this, automatically sending a survey as soon as a claim is completed will greatly increase the response rate by your customers, giving you more insight into how well your company is doing in its goal to provide exceptional customer service.