Service AFTER the sale is the most important part of the sales process!

 I had 2 recent experiences which I am sure most of us have gone through. We are looking to buy a product, and the vendor is incredibly responsive and helpful during the sales process, and then once the sale is made, they ghost us. I am going to describe these 2 recent cases, and why service is so critical to long lasting relationships, and how Automation can help! Note I am excluding the names of the vendors as I don’t want to publicly call them out.

First, I went through a car purchase process, which I think almost everyone would agree is antiquated and we all HATE! The dealer’s goal is to get us into the dealership, where they make us sit for hours so we get to the point where will sign almost anything just to get the heck out of there. This is a tactic that has been used by dealers forever, and sadly many still subscribe to this sales process. I sent emails to several dealers and stated upfront “I bought my last car online and I am NOT coming in there until we have a deal negotiated via email”, and still most responses I got were “When can you come in?”. 

So imagine my surprise when a dealer responded “Thanks for your interest in the car, if you like I can bring it to you for a test drive”. Holy cow, my dream come true! So they brought the car to my house for the test drive, and the deal proceeded remotely right through to close, we did all the payment information over the phone, and they delivered the car to me. Done and done and I never set foot in the dealership. So far, 5 stars across the board. Unfortunately, literally a week after I bought the car, a sensor went bad, these new cars have more electronics than the space shuttle, and when I reached out to the Dealer for help, thinking that after such a short time they would offer assistance, they basically said “Too bad, get it to a service center yourself”. This is a dealer with many stores in their network, and they actually own a dealership for the car brand I bought. They could have easily said “Get it to us and we will take care of it”, and yet they didn’t lift a finger to help, sale was done, sayonara. So needless to say, the 5-star experience went to 0 stars! So there isn’t a lot Automation could have done to help me here, this is just a story about how the actions after the sale are far more important than during the sale, and instead of a customer for life, they lost me and of course I would never recommend anyone buy from them. 

So now let’s look at a use case where automation could help. I also recently bought a high-end desktop computer, I work in tech and a laptop just wasn’t cutting it. I did a ton of research and finally picked a builder that had excellent reviews across the board. Much like the car purchase process, they were fantastic through the sales process, and even after purchase during the build they sent regular email check-ins with status updates.  This great service continued right up until the PC shipped, then, nothing. I got a FedEx tracking number for my shipment and that was it. 

So the PC arrived and wow it’s a beauty! I unboxed it and got it all set up, and when I tried to connect my Bluetooth mouse and keyboard I got an error message saying “Cannot connect”. I also tried my Bluetooth headphones, no joy. So imagine my reaction, all the time spent in research, paid a premium for a high end PC AND upgraded to premium support, and the thing doesn’t work right out of the box?! So I thought, well I bought premium support, I am SURE I can call for a fix. The response: “Thanks for the report, we’ll get back to you in 3 days”. Um what. This is a brand new PC AND I bought premium support and I cannot use it, and now 3 days is the best you can do?!?! Imagine my reaction, once again my 5-star experience went to 0 at light speed. Fortunately someone did get back to me later that day and said I needed to hook up the WiFi antenna as Bluetooth also uses it, which I had not done because I use Ethernet. Thankfully that fixed the issue, and I suggested they add that tidbit to their Quick Setup guide.

So, while the 2nd scenario turned out OK, it was obviously a VERY negative customer experience after the PC shipped and delivery was made. IMO a high-end PC builder like this should have stayed in constant touch with me until they confirmed the PC was up and running in my office. Of course I also understand that this sort of service takes time, so let’s look at how Power Automate could help. 

In about 15 mins I built a very simple automation that could be scheduled to run every day after a new PC ships (for my test I just ran it as an instant flow), and checks the delivery site until the package status says delivered, then an email is sent like the email pasted below. 

They key is that automation takes care of monitoring the shipping company site for the “Delivered” status, then automatically reaches out to the customer to let them know Contoso is there to provide support, and then if support is requested, the automation creates a case in D365 Customer service, and then the humans step in to provide the customer service, build the relationship, etc.

In both of these cases, just a little bit of extra customer service could have built lasting relationships, instead I will never recommend either of these vendors to anyone!

The Email sent by the Power Automate Automation>>>

From: Alan Steiner <alans@D365DemoTS977977.OnMicrosoft.com>

Sent: Friday, December 2, 2022 2:12 PM

To: john.straumann@outlook.com <john.straumann@outlook.com>

Subject: Contoso PCs Inc Welcome!

 

Hey John Straumann!

We see your order, 123456 (Full Description below) was delivered on Wednesday,  11/30/2022 at 5:27 pm.

Welcome to the Contoso PCs family! Here are some tips and tricks for your new system <quick start and tips and tricks attached>, and we would like to offer you an introductory call for any initial questions in setting up your system. Please register for our community here <link> to stay in touch with other Contoso PC family members, get product updates, news, etc.

If you already have your PC up and running and do need a call, please just reply to this email with “No” selected.

Please schedule a setup call:  <>Yes   <>No

If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback on this brief survey <survey link>.

Thank you again for choosing our premium, handmade PCs and we are excited to have you as part of our family!

Kind regards,

The Contoso PC Team.

Your system:

Order Contents:
- Contoso PC Desktop - Config ID 11111 (Config # 11111) - Quantity: 1 - Price: $1000.00
- -- PROMOTIONAL LIMITED TIME BONUS DISCOUNT: $200 (Config # 11111) - Quantity: 1 - Price: ($200.00)
- -- NVIDIA - Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Digital Code) (Config # 11111) - Quantity: 1 - Price: $0.00

System Configuration:
Chassis Model: Contoso PC Midtower
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i9-13900K (5.7 GHz Turbo) (32-Thread) (24-Core) 3.0 GHz (Raptor Lake)
Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z790-P D5 (Wi-Fi) (Intel Z790 Chipset) (Up to 3x PCI-E Devices) (No SLI) (DDR5)
System Memory: 64GB DDR5 5200MHz Kingston FURY Beast RGB
Power Supply: 1000W Contoso PC Performance Series (Semi-Modular) (80 Plus Gold)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Optical Drive: - No Thanks
Storage Set 1: 1x SSD M.2 (2TB Samsung 980 PRO) (NVM Express)
Storage Set 2: 1x SSD M.2 (2TB Samsung 980 PRO) (NVM Express)
Storage Set 3: 1x SSD M.2 (4TB Kingston Fury Renegade) (NVM Express
RAID Config: - No Thanks
RAID Card: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Graphics Card(s): 1x GeForce RTX 3060 12GB (VR Ready)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Add On Card: - No Thanks
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 3: Contoso PC Vortex Liquid CPU Cooler (Triple Fan) (Fully Sealed + No Maintenance)
HydroLux Tubing Style: - Not Applicable, I do not have a custom HydroLux liquid cooling system selected
HydroLux Fluid Color: - Not Applicable, I do not have a custom HydroLux liquid cooling system selected
Cable Management: Premium Cable Management (Strategically Routed & Organized for Airflow)
Chassis Fans: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: Remote Controlled Advanced LED Lighting System (Multiple RGB Color Modes)
Software Control: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
CPU Boost: Turbo Boost Advanced Automatic Overclocking
Graphics: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
OS Boost: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Professional (64-Bit)
Recovery Tools: USB Drive - Windows Installation (Format and Clean Install)
Virus Protection: Windows Defender Antivirus (Built-in to Windows)
Office: - No Thanks
Mouse Pad: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks|
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks|
Branded Gear: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-10 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Care with 4 Year Limited Warranty (4 Year Labor & 2 Year Part Replacement)

Sub-Total: $1000.00
|Tax (7.5%): $75.00
S&H: FREE Ground $0.00
Grand Total: $1075.00
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