No one wants to feel like an afterthought. Having great service is a choice. You can choose to offer exceptional service not only to your customers but your retail and distribution partners. Or you can choose an easy path that will alienate an entire market of consumers and business clients – a path that will lead to lost sales and a tarnished brand. The answer for service managers is clear. To establish your brand and win market share in Canada, you need to have an in-country service center to handle your warranty repairs and returns refurbishment. Let’s look at the key advantages of having an in-country service center.

1) Improve Partner Relationships

If your retail and distribution partners are forced to send their returns or repairs out of the country, they will be much less motivated to sell your product. No one wants to deal with the hassle of international shipping. The paperwork is daunting and the turnaround times to get goods serviced and returns credited are well beyond today’s acceptable standards. Those partners will prefer to sell the product of companies that provide them with accessible, local service.

2) Increase Sales and Consumer Confidence

Once consumers learn that they must ship their products across the border for service, consumer confidence in that brand will plummet. Even if all paperwork and shipping labels are provided. The excessive turnaround times alone will put off customers from purchasing your products again. People increasingly rely on online reviews and potential customers are quickly warned about buying brands that don’t provide local service. In an industry where product differentiation is increasingly difficult, not having in country service could cost you significant market share.

3) Lower Costs

Due to the low Canadian dollar, US and other foreign manufactures will find great savings by outsourcing their refurbishment and warranty repair services to a Canadian service center. By keeping your products in Canada, you would save a lot of money on transportation and administration costs. Commercial invoices, FCC forms and IATA regulations for batteries take a significant amount of administrative time that could be eliminated by keeping the product in Canada.

4) Improved Service Level

By keeping a local service center, you meaningfully reduce turnaround times for your customers. For consumers, this means increase confidence in your brand. For B2B customers who may have your equipment deployed in mission critical areas, it will be critical in winning and renewing your service contracts.

Are you looking to establish a respected service presence in Canada? Contact Us for more info