5 After-Sales Maintenance and Service Trends to Watch In 2024
Driven by new technologies, including AI, enhanced workflow and automation, and the demand for high-quality customer experience, the aftermarket services sector for manufacturers of high-value and mission-critical equipment continues to evolve. With this in mind, here are after-sales maintenance and services trends shaping 2024 and why sustainability continues to influence strategic decision-making.
After-sales maintenance and services trend 1: Sustainability
Ethical responsibility and strategic business decision-making will continue to drive manufacturers to embrace CSR and ESG initiatives in 2024.
With this in mind, manufacturers prioritising sustainability in their supply chain do so to meet stakeholder expectations, have resilience to disruptions, and ensure transparency and a competitive edge in their markets.
By the same token, sustainability is important in after-sales mission-critical machine servicing and repairs because it leads to energy efficiency, extended product lifespan and customer satisfaction.
This is why, as a pure-play independent service partner, the renewal of our EcoVadis Silver Medal for Sustainability Management in 2023 was important to us. It places Veritek ‘in the top 6% of companies rated by EcoVadis in the repair and installation of machinery and equipment industry’.
After-sales maintenance and services trend 2: Remote technical support
In keeping with the trend for sustainability, we expect demand for remote technical support to continue to increase in 2024. Because remote technical support delivers a more environmentally friendly and efficient product maintenance and customer service approach.
To illustrate, remote technical support helps manufacturers:
Deliver efficient problem resolution and uptime. By providing remote guidance and diagnostics, OEMs can pre-emptively identify potential problems, prevent significant issues and reduce the need for extensive repairs or replacements.
Reduce carbon footprint. Minimising the need for onsite technician visits reduces travel-related emissions.
Increase customer awareness and engagement: Providing remote technical support allows OEMs to create awareness for customers about proper product usage, maintenance, and eco-friendly practices.
After-sales maintenance and services trend 3: Mission-critical equipment featuring enhanced workflow technology
To remain competitive and profitable in 2024, focus on workflow is crucial for customers of manufacturers’ high-value and mission-critical equipment, for these reasons:
Reliability and consistency. Optimised workflows ensure standardised, efficient and monitored processes, minimising the chances of errors or unexpected failures.
Increasing customer throughput: When you optimise workflows, you streamline processes.
Sustainability: Efficient workflows reduce waste, energy consumption and environmental impact, aligning with customer expectations for ethical and responsible business practices.
As a result, we expect demand for after-sales maintenance and service for mission-critical equipment featuring workflow technology to increase in 2024 as it ensures reliability, efficiency, and continuity of operations within workflows.
These practices safeguard against disruptions, optimise resource utilisation, and align equipment performance with sustainability goals, ultimately contributing to the success and effectiveness of workflow technology in achieving customers’ business objectives.
Not only that, but because Veritek’s field engineers see mission-critical equipment in use in the real world and users feel comfortable speaking to our engineers, we expect to continue our role in providing vital feedback to manufacturers.
After-sales maintenance and services trend 4: Mission-critical equipment featuring automation
While workflow focuses on the organisation and optimisation of processes, automation enables machinery to perform tasks with minimal human intervention.
In 2023, technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, automating predetermined repetitive or complex tasks or processes efficiently, accurately and often faster than manual operations, dominated trade shows.
For this reason, in 2024, we expect regular maintenance of mission-critical automated equipment to increase as it is crucial to optimise performance, prevent unexpected failures, minimise downtime, ensure safety and compliance and save costs by preventing issues that could disrupt operations.
After-sales maintenance and services trend 5: VR for training and improving fix rates
Enhancements in workflow and automation technology mean meeting customers’ expectations by delivering exceptional customer service is more important than ever.
Virtual reality (VR) technology is one of the key technologies driving advances in maintenance efficiency.
To explain, Veritek is an authorised service partner of HP, a prominent player in the industrial printing sector. HP has harnessed the power of Microsoft’s HoloLens Virtual Reality (VR) technology to:
- Dramatically reduce engineer training time
- Help HP, its customers and its authorised service providers, including Veritek, to work collaboratively
- Save time diagnosing problems by way of real-time feeds
- Reduce repair time
- Improve repair accuracy
Veritek’s case study, ‘Revolutionising After Sales Support: How HP Harnesses HoloLens VR Technology to Drive Customer Satisfaction,’ is a testament to virtual reality innovation’s transformative and continuing impact in the service industry.
To sum up
In 2024, we expect after-sales maintenance and service trends to continue to help manufacturers shape a sustainable future while enhancing customer experience.
Remote support reduces the need for in-person visits, thus reducing travel and related emissions while improving fixed rates simultaneously.
Similarly, the use of VR headsets supports remote collaboration and optimises resources.
Elsewhere, regular workflow and automation system maintenance ensures energy efficiency, emission reduction, reduced waste, and increased customer throughput.
Finally, a pure-play independent service partner such as Veritek can provide manufacturers with user and data-driven feedback to enable them to identify opportunities for sustainability improvements.
Have we captured all the After-Sales Service trends in 2024? We would be interested to know your thoughts.
And finally
Have you finalised planning your 2024 after-sales service strategy? If you need assistance scaling up your capacity, get in touch to find out how Veritek can increase your availability of maintenance engineers when needed.