Service (the key): Cristóbal Pérez on the future

In part 6 of this 7 part feature series, Cristóbal Pérez – a seasoned cycling industry professional with a track record of leading change – explores what the future could bring to our industry; the good, the bad, and the ugly. In each of these there is opportunity – if you can embrace the change required to unlock it.

Imagine you going to a restaurant. Meals are good, let us say proper meal, but the service is spectacular.  The team is kind, smiling, and paying attention to anything you wish intending to make you happy. It is not a cheap place, but you felt so good that you considered the ticket as an investment in hedonism.

Next week, you go to another restaurant, well known for its awards, Michelin Guide stars year over year, and exquisite cuisine. Second to none. But the human team does not satisfy you. They seemed distant, not completely concerned about your concerns and you left the place with a sensation of a hole in your pocket.

Should you plan to recommend either, or both, Which one would you return to, and publicly endorse, recommending to friends and family?

Yes, I know that it is a naïve exercise, but let me tell you that I would come back to the one where I felt I was important, well serviced.

This metaphor puts black on white what service means. Along with love, service is what links you to a brand. If you only need it, then, it is not a brand, but a maker, provider, or seller. But if you love it, call it brand. You only stick to a brand, are proud of it, or endorse it if you have an emotional connection to it.

Succeeding brands (not makers, providers, or suppliers) thrive because they are loved. For them, service plays a key role here. They always have a solution to your problem. And the willingness for this to be like that.

You feel no love for your milk or printing paper. Neither you wear a shirt with the logo of your favourite shampoo or therapeutic insoles. There is a preference, effectiveness, and favouritism, but no love.

You could describe service as:

• Your source of benefits, safety, solutions, and care. You feel that the provided service is good because it solved one of your problems. And, automatically, you prefer a provider in the certainty of what is going to happen from the order placement to the moment in which issues stumble across, if any.
• Your love and pride for something material pushes you to show off what you traded because it is cool, positions you at a certain social level, and identifies you with the group you want to belong to or, at least, you want to look alike.

This is a golden rule that always is followed. No matter which product, sector, industry, or trading relationship. Equally, if you are a professional or final purchaser. Your perception of a good service level is the same.

You recurrently go and endorse (proudly?) a brand if you feel that you are important to it and that it urgently runs to fulfil your needs or desires. Online businesses are not exempt from this. You buy digitally wherever you are well informed, you feel the confidence required when you are giving your money to a computer, and, listen to this, where you can return your purchase as easily as the purchase process went. A topic on its own.

Wrapping up, you buy where you trust, you are well cared for. Then you tell it to everybody. You might not think of it, but service underlies here as well.

In the cycling industry, things go in the same manner. Companies should work and decide based on servicing principles and thanks to the assistance perception of their clients, not the self-awareness of it.

We can even see shops, not only leaning more on the service side to keep doors open but even depending on service for 100% of their income. The epitome of this happens when you see a dealer checking bikes that someone else sold. Nevertheless, you can push this to a whole new level if you service bikes sold over the web and you openly announce it with dedicated banners, ads, or whatever other platform, something I have not seen yet and that I miss.

If your service is at a high level, your turnover will be more stable, continuous, and helpful when sales drop or disappear.

The most brilliant attempt to put service at the right level in the bike arena comes from Shimano and its Shimano Service Centre worldwide network. It is about branding the bike service. Do you need to service any bike? Think of Shimano Service Centre. Come what may. This is the intelligent, simple, and realistic idea behind the Big Blue Brand program.

Your workshop looks like an SSC, you wear SSC gear, you use Shimano original products to fix any bike and you will be able to outstand your SSC condition on the dedicated SSC web, your own business communication, or with the corporate image colouring on blue your workshop.

But this is not about how you or your shop looks solely. In-depth, the Shimano Service Centre plan is about ensuring that you will also have all the knowledge and skills to face any bike repair.  Here rests an extraordinary training platform that 24/7 and using any device will put in your hands any expertise and information about how to a Shimano product.

And, to me, what is key is that all that proven know-how can be displayed in the eyes of your clients with the corresponding paper or digital certificates. So, it is not only about having an SSC place but proving it through knowledge acquisition and certification.

Is the Shimano Service Centre the only brilliant idea for bike service and how to market it? Of course not, but this is the one I know very well. Trust me.

Bike dealers must catch up when service is the thing. Now that e-bikes have (and generally speaking bikes will) raised the bar of technification and now that we should expect a client coming from the car with the automobile industry service patterns and level, this is what will make a shop the chosen one.

Within my tenure at Macario, Shimano’s exemplary distributor in Spain, I was able to witness how some dealers had to ship the bike to Macario for its Di2 system to be updated without even taking the bike out of the shipping box. Why? The dealer did not have the under 100€ cable to connect the bike to the computer.

This ancestral approach is not only acceptable today. Neither will your running away client.

A company can live without advertising, social media, or marketing, but not without service. Spanx, the whooping “shapewear” brand created by Sara Blakely was not able to invest in advertising for the first years of its existence. Word of mouth acted as the most powerful and effective marketing tool ever.

The word service cannot be understood only as fixing problems and devices. Service is a holistic term that should comprehend the company culture, the approach before problems, and an intention to please your clients above any other consideration.  So, for me, due to the aforementioned reasons, the service department, including the technical one, should be closely linked to/depend on the marketing division. Thus, whenever an unsatisfied user knocks on your door, it should be understood and dealt with as an opportunity to build loyalty.

Moreover, marketing initiatives should highlight the efforts and achievements of the brand in their daily doing as something good for you if you buy from me.

Indeed, a good service is not cheap, but there should be an allocated budget to make sure that it is going to work above any expectations. Merging/sharing service and marketing budgets is the right move.

I am an obsessive firm believer in service. I work hard for your well-earned salary. And I am in the right position if I demand the best possible in return. And I am ready to pay more for it. It does not mean more expensive, exclusive, or fancier, but better service.

Service will be the difference between the death of survival of companies.

To follow or connect with Cristóbal on LinkedIn, click here.

For links to parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, of the series, ‘Unavoidable change: Cristóbal Pérez on the future’, click here.

Part 7 – Ambition – the final part of this series, goes live Monday 18th of December.