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months to aquire, moments to lose


It is just hard to imagine that one of the most common reasons maintenance contracts are lost is because people don't show up and don't pay attention to the details.  In many cases maintenance is an investment to keep the life of your asset running for a protracted period of time. However the length on many maintenance contracts is not even close to the life expectancy of that equipment, so if you don't really have any idea what maintenance is being performed then how do you really know if it's being done to your specification? Thus, it really boils down to business elements, assuming that you are actually performing the work, our focus needs to be on how you are differentiated.



Let's take a look at a couple of the most common business-related reasons why people lose maintenance contracts.

  1. Not showing up; managing contracts can be complicated between the sites, number of assets, and the frequencies at which items need to be maintained, can all add up to a scheduling nightmare.  Even if everything is firing on all cylinders a problem can still exist related to unscheduled activity deferring scheduled activity depending upon the depth of your workforce. There is light at the end of this tunnel, with the cost dropping significantly on IoT, we will see the time in the not so distant future when the equipment is dictating its maintenance schedule. The challenge of course will be interpreting this information and making it as effective a process as possible.
  2. The second most common reason for losing maintenance contracts is really wrapped around all of the little things. To mention a few examples; make sure that you see Sally when you arrive, don't park in front of the building, we can only maintain this equipment and a.m. hours. While these little idiosyncrasies of a site or a client seem insignificant by themselves when they are grouped together they can create the perception with the client that you just don't care.  Competitively priced markets raise the mark and you should be aware of everything that makes that client happy and strive to satisfy even the littlest of requests.  Imagine alerting a worker via GPS when they arrive on-site of these idiosyncrasies.



So in many instances, losing a maintenance contract has little to do with the way that you are performing maintenance, instead it has to do with the way that you are approaching and managing your business. Paying closer attention to the details and leveraging emerging technologies you should be a master at retaining the lifeblood of any service business.



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Next post:  where is customer service?

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