Aiken Elevates Customer Service and
Warranty Benchmarks with Odoo
Name of Company: Aiken Pvt Ltd
Country: Sri Lanka
Number of Odoo Users: 20 active users
Industry: Trading with service and warranty
Company Size: Medium
Name of Implementation Partner: Centrics Business Solutions (Pvt) Limited
Services Offered: Sales, Purchase, Invoicing, Inventory, Accounting, Help-Desk, Manufacturing, Employees, Tailored Module for Warranty, Service and Maintenance.
Aiken: Redefining Industries with Innovation
With long-standing expertise and experience of 25 years, Aiken is a name to reckon with in the B2B consumer durables market in Sri Lanka. It provides state-of-the-art equipment and engineering solutions to the banking, telecommunications and electronics industries. It has partnered with some of the world’s most leading companies to offer banking, Point of Sale (POS), office automation, network and IT solutions to its customers.
The success of Aiken reflects in these extraordinary numbers:
- 1500+ Cash Recycling Machine (CRM), 600+ Cash Deposit Machine (CDM) and 10,000+ Cash Counting/Sorting Machine installations across the entire banking network in Sri Lanka.
- 90% market share in CRM and 95% market share in Cash Counting/Sorting machine installation.
- 3000+ Android POS installations in six months.
- Fibre cable supplier to Sri Lanka telecom since 2010.
The Pillar of Warranty and Service Support
In the old world, you devoted 30% of your time to building a great service and 70% of your time to shouting about it. In the new world, that inverts.
– Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
Well, Jeff Bezos couldn’t be more right! Perhaps, that’s why Aiken strives hard to deliver the best customer service apart from offering novel solutions. It firmly believes in the mantra ‘satisfied customer is the best source of advertisement.’ Hence, it has a dedicated 24/7 helpdesk; 148 technical officers and engineers across 8 regional offices; and a fleet of 100+ vehicles to ensure prompt and quality service to its customers.
However, Aiken’s services and support pillar had been crumbling a bit by bit for the past few months. The service standards were not able to keep pace with the increasing number of customers as the company continued to expand its business across Sri Lanka. Customers had begun to complain frequently about the delays in the fulfilment of service clauses during the warranty and post-warranty service agreement period. The helpdesk and technician teams botched up service schedules more than often. This was a vicious cycle that had begun to adversely impact Aiken’s market reputation, productivity and revenues. It also posed a major risk of its customers switching to competitors’ products.
The Decision to Automate the Processes with Odoo
Aiken noticed red flags in its warranty and service early on, and sprang into action immediately. After an elaborate root-cause analysis, it discovered that lack of data on business processes and poor coordination between various departments were responsible for all mayhem. It was about time to tackle this problem with automation.
Aiken onboarded Centrics Business Solution as its automation partner and implement Odoo’s fully customized ERP solution to improve its service processes. The company witnessed impactful results within a few week of implementation.
Automated Workflow
Earlier, Aiken largely relied on Microsoft Excel worksheets and small software applications that were not integrated. The staff captured, tracked or monitored customer requests manually. There was no seamless workflow and it resulted in poor planning of customer requests. As a result, the company often ended up missing or delaying the scheduled maintenance work of equipment during the warranty of service agreement period.
Centrics Business Solution developed an Odoo-based warranty module to manage the end-to-end service department. The module maintains an integrated master data on customer products and services. It sends automated alerts about approaching due dates or missed/delayed dates on the maintenance schedule. Automation has helped Aiken to make its workflow smooth, and manage equipment maintenance schedules effectively.
Optimization of Technician’s Workload and Route Management
Due to a lack of information on upcoming service schedules, technicians often found it difficult to plan their workload and service routes. The inconsistency caused recurring incidences of peak and slump periods of workload. At times, technicians had to travel multiple times a day to fulfil same-day service schedules on the same route.
The service team allocation automation process implementation by Odoo addressed this challenge easily. Now, technicians have complete visibility of their service schedules beforehand. They can plan their time effectively and reduce travel costs significantly.
Prompt Management of Entire Lifecycle of Service Tickets
The helpdesk often failed to process customer service requests on time as they had inadequate visibility to timely data concerning sales and warranty.
After integration of customer data management with sale and warranty apps, the helpdesk can view the entire customer and product history in less than a minute. The helpdesk can now automatically assign the service ticket to the technicians after matching their location with the customer site. The technicians can immediately act on the request. After the technicians completes the task, they fill up an electronic job sheet with the reference ticket number on it. The helpdesk forwards this job sheet to the customer for digital signature as proof of completion and marks the request closed in the system. The automation has enabled helpdesk, sales and technicians to view the entire lifecycle of service tickets at a single point of contact.
Aiken has reported a 50% improvement in the warranty and service standard after Odoo implementation. The staff efficiency and effectiveness have also increased by 20%.
Better Longevity of Machines, Reduced Service Cost
Machines need periodic service and repair or replacement of spare parts to work at optimal condition. Aiken’s warranty and service agreements with customers has in-built service schedules. In case of missed or delayed maintenance fulfilment, the customers had to continue with the faulty machine. Aiken often had to bear the cost of such slip-ups, depending on the terms and conditions of service agreement. These delays also reduced the life span of machines, resulting in a higher cost of maintenance for customers.
Odoo-powered warranty module ensures that the service team strictly adheres to the maintenance plan timelines. As a result, the machines remain in prime condition for a longer period. At the same time, both Aiken and customers can bring down the costs at their respective levels.
Improvement in Backup Machine Replacement and Spare Part Issuing Processes
Aiken provides a backup machine replacement to customers in case the original faulty machines need repair at its service center. When the record of this replacement is not captured in the system, the technicians and customers are clueless about its status. Sometimes, the replacement machine stays on the customer site for weeks even though the original has been repaired.
When it came to spare parts ordering, the helpdesk had often no idea about their availability or nearest location for issuance. Even the client did not have a clear view of the issued or removed spare parts. This was largely due to ineffective coordination between helpdesk, technicians, warehouses and customers.
However, the integration of machine backup, and spare parts replacement and ordering with Odoo purchase and warranty module has eliminated this issue. The customer satisfaction level has increased by 25% on this front.
Service Agreement Renewal Reminders
A major chunk of Aiken’s recurring revenues comes from service agreements with customers. But the company lacked a process that could send timely alerts for renewal to both staff and customers. This resulted in the delay in renewals, thereby loss of revenue for that period and inability to plan maintenance schedule.
Odoo’s ERP software has resolved this issue by automating the reminders. Aiken has witnessed improvement in the renewal of the annual service agreements by 20%.
Integration of Accounting and Inventory Software
The duplication of work between the accounting and inventory teams was a common occurrence at Aiken. Both departments had separate staff and maintained different excel sheets.
Odoo’s ERP solution integrated accounting and inventory modules, and automated their processes. Aiken was able to slash the repetitive tasks by 20%. The integration also enabled the business to manage inventory in real-time and reduce the cost of physical documents.
Real-Time Cash Flow Visibility
The payments and collections often went overdue and showed negative cash flow as no tracking mechanism was available at Aiken.
Centrics Business Solution developed Odoo cloud solution which helped it to record post-dated cheques in the system. It also developed the Pulse App for mobile users to forecast the cash flow in real-time. The system even sends automated reminders to customers for pending payments. It became easier for the sales team and accounts manager to streamline the payment collection process. The automation has improved Aiken’s cash flow by 20% and made an impact on OD interest.
Quick and Smart Decision Making
Aiken management team struggled with making decisions at the right time due to the unavailability of timely data. It reflected poorly on their business processes and market potential.
The Pulse BI app can now empower management to tap into critical business data in real-time to expedite their decisions.
Robust Data Management
Data security, reliability and availability emerged as major concerns for Aiken, especially after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pulse app assures the best and safe data management practices. It has also helped Aiken to reshape its strategy to adopt to the new normal and maintain business continuity.
The entire automation of its business processes through Odoo ERP has enabled Aiken to keep its customers happy and loyal.
About Aiken Pvt Ltd
Aiken Pvt Ltd provides innovative business solutions coupled with strong after-sales support to the banking, telecommunication and electronics industries in Sri Lanka. Visit www.aiken.lk to know more.
About Centrics Business Solutions
Centrics Business Solutions is a Sri-Lanka based implementation partner of Odoo. It has helped several organizations grow and scale their businesses with Odoo’s customer-centric solution suite. Visit www.centrics.cloud to know more.