What is Aftersales Care?

What is aftersales care, and what makes it an important business approach for some? While nearly all sales endeavors are preluded by plenty of attention and care for the consumer, many are not equally survived by such whole-hearted attention after the completion of the sale and its immediate consequences. Let’s take a closer look at customer care after the sale.

At the core of aftersales care, or post-sale care is the premise that the service or goods-providing company is not gone after the sale, but to the contrary, more present than ever. We’ll get into the reasons for such good-natured service below, but for now, the four most common forms of post-sale care await. These telling, most often seen methods of post-sale service continuity are as follows.

Warranty Provisions

Warranty service that extends into the greater future is perhaps the most common form of post-sale care. We see this quite often in automobile, sports equipment, tools, and electronics sales. Warranty details do vary greatly, but for the most part, the general premise is the backing of product via maintenance or other work in the event that the product encounters a problem in function or durability.

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Free Service Perks

Free service of some kind is another form of commonly employed post-sale care. PC sellers and manufacturers sometimes offer complimentary recovery and repair services for the life of the products they sell. This is also seen in automotive sales and service providers, jewelers, and even some home repair services involving areas such as plumbing, electric, and HVAC.

Limitless Support/Advice

Some products and services are inherently served well by the continued availability of expert support and guidance. A model airplane manufacturer may provide a hotline for hobbyists to call for assembly advice when needed. A software maker may offer limitless support to purchasers of its products. A cleaning product may also provide 24-hour company contact information for those in urgent need of chemical information or simply in pursuit of best-use advice.

Memberships, Other Exclusivities

Membership and other forms of exclusivity provide yet another route for companies to extend some care after the point of sale. In most cases however, such “clubs” and exclusive members groups are nothing more than celebrated and hyped ways to provide many of the courtesies we’ve discussed above. It certainly doesn’t hurt though to provide the customer with a strong sense of privileged and distinct standing among their peers.

Why They Do It

The reasons for such courtesy after the sale can be most often summed up into three distinctions. First, there is the matter of brand image. “In one sense, perhaps the most important sense, a brand is a promise.” The brand and the prevailing consumer image of it stand to distinctly benefit when the host company is seen standing faithfully by its product well after the purchase. This confidence is infectious, encouraging the consumer that this purchase and this is a good one.

Touching at similar logic, such service continuity itself is quite the sales perk and motivation. The consumer then has the confidence to not be overly concerned with post-sale problems as they then become the responsibility and ordeal of the service or product provider themselves. Motivating the customer before the sale with such after-sale offerings can prove quite the motivating sales force.

Finally, such care after the sale is sometimes simply provided as a matter of industry standard or competitive element. In other words, so as to keep up with the competition’s standard provisions after the sale, a company may also choose to mirror said provisions. On the other hand, they may choose to start such a trend, initiating such after-sale practice in a market that so-far has not collectively provided such forms of consumer care.

We’ve all seen a whole host of pre-sale tactics at work. At the other end of the transaction though, there are many companies that choose to remain a part of the product and consumers’ lives after the sale has been made. This is known in the industry as “aftersales care.”