The sales performance of your Indian partner is very good - but the service is poor? How you can differentiate yourself in India through perfect support and ensure reliable services with your own structures.

In markets where products are becoming increasingly similar, tailored service becomes the most important differentiating feature. Product-related services have now become widespread in the industry and – according to the Fraunhofer Institute – they already account for up to 15 percent of sales. Today, services are the key drivers of growth, employment and profit and are the key to customer loyalty. This is especially true in India.

Service “Made in India” is (unfortunately) often not a solution

Nothing works in India without services. Good and comprehensive service is also required in the B2B sector in the growth market (see article Special features of sales in India)

But we wouldn't be in India if there weren't any contradictions here either. Even if customers take comprehensive and personal customer service for granted when making a purchase, Indian companies often have to look with a magnifying glass for reliable and competent after-sales services.

Several of our customers who serve the Indian market with sales or joint venture partners have already had this experience. They were very satisfied with the sales success of their local distributors in India, but the customer support after purchase consistently left a lot to be desired. Customer inquiries were consistently ignored, spare parts were not made available at all or were made available much too late, etc. etc. The “sin register” could continue here.

Quality by outsourcing after sales activities to a separate company

We were able to solve this problem for these customers by completely outsourcing customer service into our own organization - without Indian involvement. In this way, companies can benefit from the sales strength of existing partners as well as ensure absolute customer satisfaction in after sales.

This results in one for everyone involved Win-win situation. The contracted dealers concentrate on what they do best as an Indian partner: marketing & sales, opening doors (for customers), promoting projects and selling products.

A newly founded service organization, which is 100% controlled by the German headquarters and is independent of the respective Indian sales partner, bundles all after sales and service topics, from the service hotline, maintenance, repairs and guarantees to the spare parts business . It also ensures the excellent service quality in India, for which the company is internationally known and valued in the market.

The strategy of separating sales and service could be a good way for many German medium-sized companies in India to become even more successful on the Indian market.

Contact our managing director and department head WB market solutions® Mike D Batra for more information on this topic.