It is accepted that managing warranty claims is one of the most daunting tasks in the warranty lifecycle. Managing large amounts of data brings the possibility of errors at different levels. Such errors can impact the image and overall functioning of an organization.
Current trends in managing warranty claims
The current trend of managing warranty claims data involves manual management. The challenge of a manual approach is its failure to integrate with the ongoing enhancements in business processes. Several other negative implications include cost mismanagement, operational discrepancies, customer dissatisfaction, and quality issues.
Is there a right approach?
Due to erroneous processing of warranty claims, organizations have to incur huge revenue lapses.
The right approach to correcting and maintaining warranty claims is to automate all key business policies and procedures through a comprehensive warranty claims solution. A robust system will improve the claims process and assist in building strategic plans to detect product failures early. That will help shorten the claims-processing cycle and maintain the ongoing improvement of end-to-end warranty claims management.
In greater numbers, organizations are opting for a closed loop warranty systems that direct, process, and track warranties as well as provide feedback for continuous improvement across product lifecycles. This helps in optimizing product pricing and improving customer satisfaction while minimizing costs.
Industry Example
A specialist technology provider of manufacturing advanced food-processing equipment had plans to expand its service operations across South European regions. Implementing common processes and operations of manufacturing equipment was highly critical. This would assist in streamlining the processes, building a brand image, and gaining better control of the business and revenue management.
Business Challenge
The organization was exploring options to enhance its productivity by scaling the existing processes. One of the processes that needed immediate improvement pertained to the warranty claims management system. As the process was managed through a manual legacy system, it hampered productivity tremendously.
Problems the company faced:
- Ineffective claim management due to manual tracking and management systems
- Communication channels were not automated which led to process errors
- Turnaround time and resources for project completion increased
- Inefficient management of the highly customized legacy due to lack of manpower.
As a corrective measure, and to improve product quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability, the organization decided to implement comprehensive warranty enhancement solutions.
The Solution
A warranty management solution with advanced predictive techniques was implemented to identify fraudulent and inappropriate claims. New rules were added to improve claims precision and ROI. The solution provided rich functionality for registrations, claims management, returns & supplier management, and parts returns.
The results were astounding. 95% of warranty issues were resolved. Warranty claims dropped by more than 60% in less than 2 years. The client experienced a series of business benefits such as effective cost, time and customer management, and saved huge amounts in customer service costs. The new system was flexible, easy to maintain, and highly scalable for future business enhancements.
