Why is having one integrated system that helps to manage warranties important for your Building Materials business?

Are you relying on spreadsheets & bespoke databases when it comes to managing warranties? Is your warranty management process manual? If the answer is yes to any of these then this is the blog for you!

Warranty management isn’t just an extra

You may well know that product warranty means much more that what it says on the tin, from claims, to returns, to field service, to corrective action. However, from experience we have found out that most businesses usually treat warranty processes and the costs associated to this as an afterthought, or a thorn in the side of their business.  Or it is just passed off as a side activity, when reality is it should be used as a USP to your business and the industry you work in.

Warranty can work for you in multiple ways. After some well-publicised product recalls in the past, it’s surprising that businesses aren’t paying more attention to the warranty offering that can be used to resolve product issues, which means you keep more money on your bottom line! A win, win in my books.

Why is it that businesses only step up and approach warranty management when push comes to shove? This really isn’t the way to go about it! With a proper integrated management system, warranty management can make a significant difference in the overall product quality, which inevitably makes your life easier! Having it as part of an integrated system not separate keeps everything in one place now who would say no to that?

A recent survey carried out by Aberdeen Group shows us what key factors are driving manufacturing businesses to invest in improving their warranty and contract management performance:

The results showed that 38% improved customer satisfaction, 21% increased revenue, 18% cut costs and 11% improved product quality. As you can see warranty performance can be a major source of cost saving for building materials businesses, but it can also be a boost to your brand and overall customer experience which can in turn lead to customer loyalty.

Resolve, manage & measure your warranty process.

We have worked with some building materials businesses in the past where they have used the management of their warranties as an opportunity to improve their product offering by applying analytics to data from their warranty and repair programs.

Even if they hadn’t yet implemented IoT into their warranty system or processes, by adopting IoT as part of their warranty management processes, they gained the capability to integrate valuable information that improved their building products and gave them new insights which helped to enhance support processes, increased product service, and gave new experiences to their customers, all of which lead to improved revenues.

Having the ability to Identify trends and opportunities is vital for your business. Dynamics Building Materials gives businesses likes yours insight through dashboards and analytics across finance, sales, production, operations and customer service. Having the ability to explore what-if scenarios and forecast outcomes through interactive charts and visualisations to ensure everyone in your organisation has the information they need, when they need it is a must!

Not forgetting you need to be able to Log and track stockist, contractor or even end user issues, claims, returns and complaints with standardised processes to ensure timely resolution and happier customers, which in the end is what every business wants!

Dynamics Building Materials lets businesses like yours track serial and batch numbers to understand warranty commitments and ensure the supply of correct parts/replacement products. Dare I say even manage product recalls if needed….

Manage the return of items for repair or replacement complete with any charges and use tailored workflows to automatically assign customer issues to the right team member - with the relevant knowledge and access to information to deal with that customer or issue, quickly so there is no confusion. Analyse and identify reasons for returns, tagging products or suppliers with corrective actions for fast, future issue-resolution.

Your opportunity to learn all about Dynamics Building Materials

Dynamics Building Materials is our tailored offer of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement to provide a complete end-to-end business software solution for Building Materials manufacturers and distributors.

Some of our key Consumer Goods industry clients include Alumasc Group Plc, Biasi, Charlton & Jenrick, Eastbrook, Epwin Group, Eterna Lighting, Karndean and The MX Group.

If you wish to learn more Book on to our introductory webinar on Wednesday 25th September from 10:00am to 11:00am: ‘Enhance your warranty and service management processes with Microsoft Dynamics’.