Through targeted selection and well thought-out design, you can also provide service offerings with customer-benefit-oriented unique selling points. Standards such as delivery capability and adherence to delivery dates, which today are only very occasionally perceived as special features, are no longer suitable for this purpose. You have to watch and listen carefully to your customers in order to identify such unique selling propositions.
Example: A producer of commodity products made of plastic for the construction industry, although under extreme price pressure due to overcapacities, has taken over parts of the warehouse management and purchasing process of wholesaler customers as a free service. Within just a few years, the manufacturer was able to achieve a near-monopoly position in its submarket by means of customer-specific labeling of the individual products using individual barcodes and also by linking its own ERP system to the customer’s warehouse management programs, which triggers automatic orders and thus subsequent deliveries when levels fall below predefined minimum quantities in the customer’s warehouse.
The prerequisites for this are a close relationship to the customer, an understanding of the application, creativity and the courage to differentiate, and the ability to implement the process. If your customers say of you, “They get it,” then you’ve made it.
The service offering is largely determined by product management.