Post-sales

Several vendors manufacture liquid dispensers, plate storage and incubator devices, and plate detection instruments that are the three major components used in compound screens. Selection of equipment is usually based on several factors including need, previous experience, recommendations, cost, available funding, and quality of post-sale service provided by the instrument vendor. Many instruments from different manufacturers such as the photomultiplier tube (PMT)-based plate readers exhibit similar function and performance. Therefore, reliability, cost, and service quality become the dominating factors for purchase decisions. 

Increase in starch crystallinity is often considered as the most straight forward way of understanding the changes that take place in bread during storage. The consumer associates the softness of bread with freshness. Keeping bread softer for longer will increase the pre- and post-sale shelf-life of the product. 

Designing a Robust Post-Sales Reverse Logistics Network... 

The 4-tier post-sale reverse logistics network presented in this study consists of production plants, repair facilities, collection centers, and disposal centers (Fig. 26.1). A third party logistics service provider (3PL) is responsible for providing... 

Fig. 26.1 The research problem post-sale reverse logistics network...

In this post-sale network, defective products are returned to the collection centers by the customers. It is assumed that amounts of returned products by customers are uncertain parameters with known nominal and shift values. Then the returned products are shipped to repair facilities for initial inspection and repair. The inspection unit in each repair facility is responsible for determining whether a returned product is irreparable or repairable. Irreparable returned products are sent to disposal centers for disposing and the respective customers will be provided with new products as replacements. Repairable returned products are sent to repair facilities for repairing in which the defective parts of repairable products are replaced with necessary spare parts. Then the repaired returned products are shipped back to the collection centers for delivering to the customers. In addition, the defective parts are shipped to disposal centers for disposal. Finally, the production plants are responsible for providing spare parts and new products for repairing returned products and replacing irreparable returned products, respectively. The material flows in the aforementioned network are demonstrated in Fig. 26.1. 

Du F, Evans GW (2008) A bi-objective reverse logistics network analysis for post-sale service. Cranput Oper Res 35 2617-2634... 

Deliver (55) 4.1 Order Management (7) 4.2 Warehousing/Fulfillment (8) 4.3 Customization/Postponement (5) 4.4 Deliver Infrastructure (4) 4.5 Transport (6) 4.6 E-Commerce Delivery (6) 4.7 Managing Client/Customer Partnerships (11) 4.8 Post-Sales Technical Support (6) 4.9 Customer Data Management (2)... 

Service includes the post-sale contact with the customer in support of the product. A long-term contract, in which updates or repair service is offered, is one option. User groups in which customers can get information from the firm or each other is another. Information sharing (including promotional contacts) is a third. 

Section 5 we look at post-sales service. In Section 6 we conclude with general observations about research opportunities related to the marketing-operations interface in the world of e-commerce. 

A substantial portion of research on post-sales service is strategy oriented and empirical (survey and case-method based), and has focused on identifying effective service channels (Armistead and Clark, 1991, Bums, 1995, Loomba, 1996, Loomba, 1998, Goffin, 1999), and key drivers (Hull and Cox, 1994). For manufacturing firms in the early 1980s, fast and reliable repair was considered the most important aspect of support (Lele and Karmarkar, 1983) and received most of the research attention. Many relevant issues in this area lie on the marketing and operations interface. 

While shifting operations to the Web can lead to dramatic savings, around the clock availability, and reduced customer waiting, many questions remain about adopting these new customer contact modes. For instance Which are the most effective contact modes for a particular segment-task combination How does service variety affect operational requirements What incentives should be used to improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency across contact modes What are the competitive implications of various types of post-sale support ... 

Casella CEL Inc. introduced a new dedicated pre-and post-sales online technical support service, accessible via http //helpdesk.casellameasurement.com. 

The group employed around 16,100 people worldwide in 2005, up 3% from the 15,600 the previous year, and posted sales of 1.24 billion, in the year from October 1st 2004 to September 30th 2005. The Epcos net sales situation on the basis of unaudited 2005 figures and denominated in euro millions, is shown in Table 6.1. 

Make sure you have nurture tracks created for recycled leads. A recycled lead is a lead that sales determines is not sales-accepted — that is, someone that doesn t fit the ideal lead profile or who isn t ready to talk to sales. For more detail on sales-accepted leads, refer to Chapter 15. Therefore, sales sends that lead back to nurturing. But just because a lead isn t ready to buy at the time she is contacted doesn t mean she will never be ready to buy. Create lead recycle tracks based on the data that a sales rep collected during the call, such as decision timeframe and interests. That way, you can make sure you communicate with your leads in an appropriate fashion post-sales. 

In this electronic world, the dependence on paper products has decreased, but the paper and packaging industry still plays an important role in the economy of the United States, employing about 400,000 people and posting sales up to 115 billion... 

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