Times have changed for service. According to a recent AMR Research study, "The service landscape is shifting. Service is no longer a back-office cost of doing business, but a margin-enhancing opportunity for brand and service distinction."* As a result, leading companies now see service as both a profit center and an opportunity to gain an advantage over the competition.

The only way to make this happen at your company is to provide superior and differentiated customer service. Service that makes your customers come back for more and recommend your business to their friends and colleagues. How can you capitalise on this trend in your business?

Only SAP offers a comprehensive service solution that spans the entire service-delivery value chain – enabling you to deliver superior customer experiences through a multi-channel call center or Web site, manage and verify service contracts, resolve customer issues in the first contact, and promptly and accurately manage invoicing and accounting processes. For product-centric companies, you can also provide efficient field service, settle warranty claims, process return material authorisations, and effectively manage your service parts inventory, logistics, and fulfillment.

It's only by bringing all these capabilities together from the back-office to the front-office that you can truly deliver on the vision of superior and differentiated service. Bring service to the forefront of your best-run business, and transform your service organisation from a cost center into a profit center and a competitive differentiator.

* Hillman, Mark, "Service Can Be a Profit Maker: Case Studies from High Tech," AMR Research, February 2006

HOW DO I...?

• Create optimal offers that provide the right mix of products and services to help increase revenues
• Differentiate through service excellence to increase customer satisfaction and decrease the likelihood of customer churn