Are you looking to renew your service contract or switch providers? To save you headaches in the future, here are six things to ensure your service company offers when renewing your contract.
Guaranteed Up-Time
You secure a service contract to ensure your equipment works when you need it most. Make sure your service company has a stake in the game by including guaranteed up-time in their contract. To properly track uptime, they need to be able to track and calculate fault times comparative to contracted time.
Sufficient Resources to Service Your Contract
To prevent surprises, ask your service company about their resources to service your equipment. Are there engineers located directly in your area? Are there engineers trained on your specific make and models of equipment? Are there enough engineers to cover during the holidays? What resources are available for those engineers to ensure they repair the system on the first fix? Those simple questions can prevent "uh-oh" moments after you sign the contract.
Escalation Procedures for Resolving Service Issues Quickly and Efficiently
Think of the worst day of the year for your equipment to go down. According to Murphy's Law, that's exactly what will happen, so you want to ensure your company has escalation procedures for bad breakdowns and emergency situations for your organization.
Technical Support to Resolve Faults Swiftly
What if your system could be fixed without an engineer showing up onsite? Welcome to technical support. Technical support is typically performed over the phone with an expert technician who is onsite. This can save you a lot of time because you’re able to either resolve the issue within a reasonable timeframe or further diagnose the issue to make it more efficient for the service engineer to repair the equipment when they arrive.
A Centralised Service Coordinator Team - Not a Call Centre
When you’re experiencing issues with a key piece of equipment, the last thing you want is to click through a call centre queue only to be lost in the process. Ask about your service company’s service coordination process. We’ve received feedback that a centralised team where you’re assigned a dedicated service coordinator provides the best customer experience.
Use A Local Service Team
Before signing that next service contract, ensure the team that you’re working with actually lives in your region. There are some companies that fly engineers in upon receiving a service request. Obviously, that’s not very efficient for your team and patients.
Let’s face it - the last thing you want is to use your service contract. But when you do, make sure that you have everything you need to be successful and feel confident that you’ll be covered when you need it the most.
