The Accellion Service Guarantee Case study V2
- 1. THE ACCELLION SERVICE GUARANTEE Case 17 - 34 1
- 2. About the Company • Founded in 1999, Accellion is a privately held company headquartered in Palo Alto, California with offices in North America, Asia and Europe. • Accellion is an award winning private company that provides secure file sharing and collaboration in the private cloud. Recognized as a leader by industry analysts, Accellion offers enterprises and government agencies the scalability, flexibility, control and security to enable a global workforce with the tools they need to securely access, edit, share, and manage information, wherever work takes them. • More than 15 million business users and 2,500 of the world’s leading enterprises and government agencies trust this enterprise solutions to securely connect people to enterprise information from any device. • Value Proposition’s to the clients – Allows them to serve their users faster. – Increases Operational efficiencies. – Minimize cost. – Customer’s could improve the access time for downloading and uploading files by more than 200% 2
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- 4. 4 Objectives understand the impacts of a well designed service guarantee Evaluate the degree of culture creation for service excellence within the company Suggesting ways to minimize potential cheating on its guarantee To evaluate the effectiveness of Accellion service guarantee in communicating service excellence to current & potential customers
- 5. Outstanding features How was it Done? – Outstanding Infrastructure – Locating an intelligent storage and file management system at the “Edges of Internet”. – The typical time consuming routing through many servers and hubs could be avoided using Accellion Infrastructure. Tapping the opportunity: – The need for an internet to deliver high bandwidth content to end user has never been greater. – There was a trend towards multimedia and personalized web content, all of which could not be delivered efficiently by existing infrastructure, which was a busy route traffic: – Accellion tapped this opportunity , by developing and launching a new service distributed file storage, management and delivery. Catering to tapped opportunities: – Accellion provided an application platform that resided on independent servers, which were directly connected to the user’s ISPs. – This avoided the congested servers of the internet. – Allowed Accellion to distribute specialized content and applications more efficiently. 5
- 6. Question 1 : What is the Marketing impact of a well-designed Service guarantee ? 6
- 7. Service Guarantee A service guarantee is a marketing tool service used by the firms to – Reduce consumer risk perceptions, signal quality, differentiate a service offering, – Find opportunities to rectify a situation – Set standards to cater to the expectations of consumers from the service provided Details of Service Guarantee – Performance Guarantee – Availability Guarantee – Customer Service Guarantee – Security and Privacy Policy 7
- 8. Marketing Impacts 8 Positive Marketing Impacts Negative Marketing Impacts Company: Company: • Focus on consumer expectations • Set clear performance standards foremployees • High Cost- Training, Research, Maintenance • Increase service quality and serviceperception • Over promising problems • Increase reputation • Bad impression in case of any securityglitch • Attract new customers and increase marketshare • Bad impression in case of equipment breakdown orpower • Identify, understand, and eliminate and/or reduce potentialfail system failure points in the service operation. • Negative impact in case of inexperienced or rudeemployees • Actively seek customer feedback in order to identify failpoints and/or improve service performance Employees Employees: • Increased workload • Clear and defined guidelines foremployees • Increased training costs • Increased pressure Customers Customers: • Reduces the risk consumers perceive when deciding onthe purchase of a service. • High price • Commitment to service quality • Deterioration in operations decreases brand loyalty ofits • Improvement in operations increases brand loyalty ofits customers customers • Deterioration in operations decreases positiveword-of- mouth • Improvement in operations increases positive word-of-mouth by its by its customers. customers.
- 9. Question 2 : Evaluate the design of Accellion’s guarantee. How effective will it be in communicating service excellence to potential and current customers? Would you recommend any changes to its design or implementation? 9
- 10. Design of Accellion’s guarantee 10 Characteristics Accellion’s Guarantee Unconditional • Clear contact providing 100% service guarantee to itscustomers • 24-hours support center • Does not impose any condition for serviceguarantee Meaningful • Response within 2 hours of receiving a complaint • 48 hours of advance notification before service disruption due toroutine maintenance Easy to Understand • Wordings used are not confusing ormisleading • Language is comprehensible • Language made easy for both the employees as well as thecustomers Easy to Invoke • No questions asked , “customer’s discretion”guarantee • Commitment encourages Accellion to provide excellent service, failingwhich the company would have to bear high risks to compensatecustomers
- 11. How effective will it be in communicating service excellence to potential and current customers? 11 Listening Gap • Sufficient market research has been done but there is constant scope of improvement • Adequate Service recovery provided in case of service failure but customer’s dynamic expectations could be challenging Service Design and Standard Gap • Good Service Design : • Efficient • Reliable • Privacy Service Performance Gap • Employee clearly understand their role • No intermediaries, direct deliveries Communication Gap • Over-promising • 100% availability • Risk free Service Excellence Potential Customers : More willing to use the service • Attracted • Reduced perceived risks • Current Customers • Satisfied customers would increase brand loyalty
- 12. Recommendations : design or implementation Design Recommendations: – Increase policy transparency by generating regular reports – Should be careful while using words – Add disclaimers wherever needed – Should make use of competitive advantage Implementation Recommendations: – Employee more staff & ensure efficiency from the employees – Regular training of employees to keep them up-to-date and motivated – Continuous improvements by keeping track of customer expectations through surveys and feedbacks. 12
- 13. Question 3 : Will the guarantee be successful in creating a culture for service excellence within Accellion? What else may be needed for achieving such a culture? 13
- 14. Culture creation for service excellence 14 Principles of Service Excellence • Vision & Mission Statement • Business Objectives • Service Standards • Intervention & Learning Strategy • Organizational Alignment • Measurement & Leadership Accountability Attributes of Service Guarantee providing Service Excellence • Performance Guarantee • Availability Guarantee • Customer Service Guarantee • Security and Privacy Policy Potential Challenges • Communication • Misalignment • Teamwork/Engagement • Conflicting Priorities • System/Processes • Service Recovery/ Problem Resolution • Accountability
- 15. Question 4: Do you think customers might take advantage of this guarantee and ‘stage’ service failures to invoke the guarantee? If yes, how could Accellion minimize potential cheating on its guarantee? 15
- 16. Potential cheating on service guarantee 16 Drivers for Cheating Details Triggers Steps to minimize the Potential Cheating Potential Material • There is no strong relationship between • Unethical situational • Difficult to address if Gain amount of compensation and cheating Variables customers are unethical • External pressure • Dissatisfaction • Machiavellianism Toget long term relationship • Toget high involvement in service • Switching cost is higher and time consuming • Toachieve priority • Triggered due to Personality variables • Tobecome the locus of control • Introduce customer loyalty program Level of Cheating increases when the customer is • Triggered due to inhibitory • Provide seamless and high Satisfaction • Unhappy situational variables quality service to the • Perceives unfair treatment • Attitudes customers • Dissatisfied with the service Ease of invoking a Guarantee • Presence of opportunities to commit an unethical behavior can be seen as a motivator for cheating • Triggered due to inhibitory situational and personality variables • • Conditions should be explained in detail Breach of contract should be specified
- 17. THANK YOU & GOOD LUCK ■ Presentation by Ehab 17