How building sustainable after-sales services will help shape OEMs’ success in the future

As 10th annual Tomorrow’s Engineers Week (7-11 November 2022) draws to a close, Sales and Marketing Director Adrian Clark looks at how building sustainable after-sales services will help shape OEMs’ success in the future

After-sales service, including remote technical support, onsite field engineering services and repair centre support, is a primary driver of customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and business growth.

Yet, as customer expectations for product uptime and first-time fix rates rise, our OEM partners tell us they recognise the urgent and critical need to reduce their businesses’ environmental impact.

To build sustainable after-sales service, in the future we expect to see increasing demand for the following:

• Remote technical support
• Use of AR and video capabilities to improve uptime and customer satisfaction (The pandemic accelerated the acceptance of remote and video-based interactions. Veritek is embracing this opportunity.)
• A robust long-term support structure to extend the usable life of equipment beyond even the end-of-service life our OEMs define
• IIOT-driven predictive maintenance to minimise customer downtime, and parts consumption

What will be the most exciting engineering development in after-sales service in the next ten years?

I foresee two exciting engineering innovations significantly impacting our after-sales service partnership business in the next ten years.

Robotics

First, the expansion of the application of robotics will have a profound effect on the sectors in which Veritek operates (medical, ophthalmic, digital cinema, print and graphics and photo imaging) in the coming years.

The increasing adoption of collaborative robots (cobots) by the SME sector and others is fundamentally changing where Veritek needs to deliver after-sales services.

To illustrate, we’re already seeing cobots transforming the healthcare sector from carrying supplies to automatic patient monitoring.

Beyond that, I’m seeing cobots deployed in more dispersed and diverse environments such as later-life care.

Elsewhere, in Norway, I’ve recently seen robots re-fuelling cars in petrol stations, robot baristas, and an automatic EV battery charging station to enable speedy re-fuelling of your electric vehicle.

The circular economy

Secondly, I see a continuing shift in focus to a circular economy as vital in the next decade because a circular economy allows us to reduce our impact on the planet’s resources.

A circular economy supports the trend towards sustainability as it makes the products we use maintainable, upgradable and repairable instead of simply replaceable.

B2B sectors that focus strongly on serviceability and longevity show leadership in the circular economy.

As demand for sustainable consumer products grows, I foresee B2C companies also contributing to the circular economy.

To Sum Up

Tomorrow’s Engineers, led by Engineering UK, is committed to increasing the number of young people entering engineering careers.

The point of sale of mission-critical equipment is not the end of an OEMs’ relationship with its customers. In fact, it is only the beginning.

Veritek provides third-party partnerships that empower OEMs to scale up their after-sales service capacity, because after-sales service drives customer satisfaction, loyalty and business growth.

We believe after-sales service provides a great career for young people with strong problem-solving skills, have a meticulous attention to detail and who love working with people.

That’s why we want to inspire young people to consider careers in maintenance and repair, remote technical support and field engineering.

This blog is relevant to the following Veritek industry sector verticals:

Robotics and cobotics