| Desktops
With the desktop market becoming highly commoditized, there is hardly any
differentiation in terms of features and functionalities offered by various
vendors. Ensuring customer satisfaction in such a highly commoditized market,
thus, becomes an even more challenging task. This is reflected in the low degree
of variance within the satisfaction scores of different vendors.
With the product being commoditized, the key difference in satisfaction comes
from the services part. Considering this, its a matter of concern that vendors
have done poorly on the post-sales service parameter. With a satisfaction score
of 81.3, it is the lowest among all the parameters. The saving grace, though,
has been the comparative growth over last years score80.7 points.
The survey threw light on some concerns that CIOs have from their desktop
vendorsdemonstration and training, expertise of vendor, availability of spare
parts, clarity of pricing contract, etc.
The overall customer satisfaction score in the desktop market has shown a
very marginal improvement (from 82.7 points last year to the current 82.9
pointsa 0.24% growth) upon last years performance. While the satisfaction
growth trend can be termed as almost staid, the interesting part here is the
vendor dynamics.
 |
| Lenovo witnessed a sharp rise
in satisfaction with customers expressing satisfaction on parameters like
pre-sales and marketing, price and commercial, and delivery and
installation. On the other hand, CIOs issues with factors like Overall
Product Reliability (Product Features), Value for Money (Price and
Commercial), and Interaction with the service team (Post-Sales Service)
proved to be Wipros Achilles heel, leading to its downfall |
Lenovo regains the #1 position that the IBM-Lenovo combine held in the
CSA-2006 survey. More importantly, Lenovo and Zenith are the only vendors to
have improved upon their last years satisfaction scores.
Over the last one-and-a-half years, Lenovo has expanded its footprint in
India. The company worked on the visibility part. Around two years ago, IBM
overshadowed the Lenovo brand, whereas people have now started identifying with
Lenovo as well. This is reflected in the satisfaction improvement on the
pre-sales and marketing parameter, from 82.9 points last year to the current
84.7. Considering it is also the strongest in terms of product as well as
post-sales service, Lenovo seems to have everything going for it in the right
places. Even though CIOs seem to be happiest with Lenovo when it comes to
product reliability, product functionality, domain knowledge and understanding,
value for money and responsiveness, the company needs to work on devising better
clarity in its pricing contracts, and needs to up the ante on demonstration and
training. Overall, on pricing and delivery and installation front, it is HP that
takes the cake.
 |
| On the five key satisfaction parameters, CIOs are most
satisfied with their desktop vendors in terms of their product offerings.
But their verdict reflects that vendors need to work upon improving their
post-sales service to match up to the satisfaction levels that the product
elicits. Post-sales parameter has the lowest satisfaction score
despite being the second most important derivative of satisfaction |
On the other hand, Wipros lack of focus on its PC business probably explains
its disappointing fall of four places. As an SI, it has mostly been pushing its
desktop where there is an opportunity in its SI deals. This apart, it has been
picking up some government deals. The company hasnt invested much in terms of
product evolution, nor has it been competitive on the pricing front. The
cumulative effect is the drop in satisfaction levels of its customers.
| Customer
satisfaction in the desktop market has gone beyond standard requirements
Sudhir Puthran, director,
Service & Support, Lenovo India
What has been the
companys strategy for ensuring customer satisfaction?
Last year, the focus was primarily on how we move to the next level, from
satisfying the customers to delighting them and how we get that kind of
response from the customer. One of the answers was reaching customer on
time. We worked on increasing our coverage, which was a big issue last year.
For commercial desktops on
the enterprise front, we expanded from 88 cities to around 120. Then we
looked at the touch points. The people who touch customers are those in call
centers and engineers who go to the field. We want them to carry the same
conviction. For this, we started a training program for imparting soft
skills, as its a mind thing.
What initiatives have you
undertaken in the area of customer support?
Last year, we set up our customer care operations, which allow a single
touch point for customers and partners to elevate any possible issue they
may have. There is one owner, who will be the contact point and that owner
will internally chase the right people and push them. When the business as
usual fails or the normal process fails, it can be brought to the customer
care operations without the customer or the partner bothering about who to
contact and how.
What challenges do you
face in satisfying ever-demanding customers?
Customer satisfaction in the desktop market has gone beyond the product and
the standard requirements. The key challenge now is how to make our people
sensitive to the non-standard requirements and issues of the customers. |
 |
| Vendors know what to focus most onproduct
and post-sales serviceto make CIOs satisfied, considering these two have
come up as the top two parameters of satisfaction. Lenovo has scored the
highest on all the three product attributes, helping it ensure the top
position in overall satisfaction. Surprisingly, it is the assembled market,
and not the branded players, that has been able to satisfy CIOs most when it
comes to expertise in resolving problems |
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