Traditionally manufacturers offered warranties to buyers to assure buyers of the quality and longevity of products or services. The manufacturer (or the seller) would typically cover the repair or replacement of the products within a period of time.
The industry has progressed a long way from there. With the increasing complexity of production and the supply chain, warranties today include everything from product coverage to customer support and logistics.
But today, with distribution and supply chains spanning continents, how do manufacturers stay on top of their warranty information and claims management?
What is Warranty Management?
IDC Manufacturing Insights defines warranty management as the stages of the warranty process, including registration, claim capture, claims validation, early failure detection, recalls, parts returns, adjudication, extended warranty service, supplier recovery, and reserve optimization.
Professional claims management for manufacturers often comprises the paperwork for warranties, checking validity in case of fraudulent claims, and ensuring fast, efficient and cost-effective processing while fulfilling warranty claims.
Managing warranties often includes the stakeholders (and their roles) in ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service.
If you are looking for a Warranty Management system that can help you reduce backlog, and minimize claims processing time and paperwork, check out Tavant’s solutions.
The Impact of Digitization on Warranty Management
With increased digitization, more manufacturers are turning to technology solutions to optimize the warranty management process.
While manufacturers have traditionally viewed warranty management as a necessary evil, studies now prove that the right technology can help manage warranty information and claims processes more effectively, which can positively impact revenue.
What is a Warranty Management Software?
Warranty Management software allows manufacturers to optimize their warranty management process by helping them create, monitor, process, and track warranties. Warranty management software enables users to stay on top of claims, coverage, and customer requests across the entire service life-cycle.
Today’s warranty software products are also AI-enabled, allowing manufacturers to use machine learning capabilities to automate time-consuming functions. This helps improve the warranty process and ensures a superior level of customer service while delivering profitability.
Benefits of a Warranty Management Software
In general, warranty management software helps ensure uniform standards in warranty processes while providing increased transparency and communication between manufacturers, suppliers manufacturers.
Let’s look at some of the additional specific benefits:
Reduce warranty costs
Technology can help manufacturers streamline processes in a way that can save time and shorten the service life-cycle, and as a result, reduce costs. APCQ (American Productivity & Quality Center) found that the more digitally mature an organization’s supply chain, the lower the warranty costs. Costs are found to drop from 3.5 % of sales when decisions are made based on analyzing past actions.
Improve aftermarket excellence
Reduced errors, faster resolutions, and accuracy in troubleshooting are the benefits of a warranty software solution, which improves customer satisfaction and builds a reputation for aftermarket excellence.
Gain real-time intelligence
Due to the digitization of many aspects of the manufacturing process, proper warranty management can offer manufacturers the ability to view in almost real-time the service experience and product usage across the entire service life-cycle. As data starts getting captured by more connected devices such as IoTs and automated warranty systems, manufacturers can analyze and avail near real-time insights into product performance and service status.
Reduce fraudulent activity
AI-based systems are using image recognition to identify fraudulent claims in a faster and more cost-efficient way. Machine learning algorithms are trained using thousands of images and can detect real issues against digitally manipulated images or past claims.
Improve processes
Warranty management software offers a closed-loop approach that can help optimize the claims procedure. By reducing operational discrepancies, warranty management can help manufacturers improve the process incrementally.
Increase visibility between teams
Often, teams across the service life-cycle don’t have visibility into warranty information, products, assets, and customer information. Access to service data can help all stakeholders have clear communication and visibility, improving collaboration.
Optimize revenue
Warranty management systems can help reduce losses incurred due to logistic delays or fraudulent claims. Time spent analyzing claims can also be minimized, saving resources and enhancing productivity, which can make warranty management a more cost-effective process.
Tavant offers manufacturers an AI-driven, next-generation warranty management solution, which has helped organizations reduce warranty costs, increase supplier recovery, and improve aftermarket excellence. Talk to us for more information.
SOURCES:
