By: Magnus Sävenäs, VP Customer Care
Electrolux Professional manufactures and sells kitchen- and laundry products and solutions to restaurants, hotels and other professional customers and are world leaders with several millions of installations globally.
Challenge
Previously sales and delivery of service and after market was handled by partners. In a new strategy the company aims to sell service directly to end customers and drive sales of proactive maintenance- and service services as well as spare parts, consumables and accessories through partners. This means the sales organization should sell solutions instead of products. The strategic change implies a shift in attitude, competence and behaviour, from pushing features and benefits to clarifying the value of the solution for the customer.
Solution An initial step was to get insights into the needs, demands and priorities of the market connected to service and aftermarket solutions. 3S ran a market study, interviewing local customers from different markets and segments. The conclusion was that it exists a number of unmet needs for service solutions and Electrolux Professional had a great opportunity to develop its service offerings to better target these needs. The end result included an updated Value Proposition.
To enable local sales teams to sell service products and solutions, and discuss value rather than features, 3S developed a sales manual for Value Based Selling of the new service offering. The manual contains concrete steps, sales techniques and practical guides and templates like arguments, questions, objection handling and activity planning specifically for selling service.
With a large and geographically spread organization, Management wanted to monitor progress in terms of implementation of the new way of working. 3S developed and ran a strategy implementation survey across local markets, providing management with KPIs and insights where to focus, and local units with actionable data to boost implementation.
To optimize local sales of relevant service offerings, 3S ran workshops with Sales Managers and Service Managers in all markets, resulting in concrete sales plans, targets and activities for how to sell the service offering in each market.
To provide increased and focused support for local units, Electrolux decided to appoint 3 Business Line Managers, each one focusing on a specific part of the service and after market offering. 3S helped to design and align the role of the BL Managers, including tasks and activities, standards and not the least concrete ways of working when supporting local units.
Outcome
Service as part of the whole offering has become anchored and accepted in the organization. Local management have clear objectives and plans for service and aftermarket sales, and tools to support daily activities. The potential in each local market is becoming optimized with increased margin and increased sales as a result.