The Accellion Service Guarantee

Presented by-Saurav PattanaikRuchira PanigrahyVishal Panda

Objectives

understand the impacts of a well designed service

guarantee

To evaluate the effectiveness of Accellion service

guarantee in communicating service excellence to current& potential customers

Evaluate the degree of culture creation for

service excellence within the company

Suggesting ways to minimize potential

cheating on its guarantee

About the Company Founded in 1999, Accellion is a privately held company headquartered in Palo Alto, California with

offices in North America, Asia and Europe.

Accellion, Inc provides enterprise-class secure collaboration and managed file transfer solutions that provide the ease-of-use employees need, while giving the enterprise organization the security protection it needs.

More than 1,200 enterprise organizations, representing seven million business users worldwide rely on Accellion solutions to help keep their enterprise information secure and ensure compliance

Value Proposition’s to the clients Allows them to serve their users faster. Increases Operational efficiencies. Minimize cost. Customer’s could improve the access time for downloading and uploading files by more than

200%

Salient FEATURESHow was it Done?

Outstanding Infrastructure Locating an intelligent storage and file management system at the “Edges of Internet”. The typical time consuming routing through many servers and hubs could be avoided using Accellion

Infrastructure.

Tapping the opportunity : The need for an internet to deliver high bandwidth content to end user has never been greater. There was a trend towards multimedia and personalized web content, all of which could not be delivered

efficiently by existing infrastructure, which was a busy route traffic. Accellion tapped this opportunity , by developing and launching a new service distributed file storage,

management and delivery.

Catering to tapped opportunities Accellion provided an application platform that resided on independent servers, which were directly connected

to the user’s ISPs. This avoided the congested servers of the internet. Allowed Accellion to distribute specialized content and applications more efficiently.

Question 1 : What is the Marketing impact of a well-designed Service guarantee ?

Service Guarantee

A service guarantee is a marketing tool service used by the firms to Reduce consumer risk perceptions, signal quality, differentiate a service offering, Find opportunities to rectify a situation Set standards to cater to the expectations of consumers from the service provided

Details of Service Guarantee Performance Guarantee Availability Guarantee Customer Service Guarantee Security and Privacy Policy

Marketing ImpactsPositive Marketing Impacts Negative Marketing Impacts

Company:• Focus on consumer expectations • Set clear performance standards for employees• Increase service quality and service perception• Increase reputation• Attract new customers and increase market share• Identify, understand, and eliminate and/or reduce

potential fail points in the service operation.• Actively seek customer feedback in order to identify fail

points and/or improve service performance

Company:

• High Cost- Training, Research, Maintenance • Over promising problems• Bad impression in case of any security glitch• Bad impression in case of equipment breakdown or

power system failure• Negative impact in case of inexperienced or rude

employees

Employees

• Clear and defined guidelines for employees

Employees:• Increased workload• Increased training costs• Increased pressure

Customers• Reduces the risk consumers perceive when deciding on

the purchase of a service.• Commitment to service quality• Improvement in operations increases brand loyalty of its

customers • Improvement in operations increases positive word-of-

mouth by its customers.

Customers:

• High price• Deterioration in operations decreases brand loyalty of

its customers • Deterioration in operations decreases positive word-

of-mouth by its customers.

Question 2 :Evaluate the design of Accellion’s guarantee. How effective will it be in communicating service excellence to potential and current customers?Would you recommend any changes to its design or implementation?

design of Accellion’s guarantee

Characteristics Accellion’s Guarantee

Unconditional • Clear contact providing 100% service guarantee to its customers• 24-hours support center• Does not impose any condition for service guarantee

Meaningful • Response within 2 hours of receiving a complaint• 48 hours of advance notification before service disruption due to

routine maintenanceEasy to Understand • Wordings used are not confusing or misleading

• Language is comprehensible• Language made easy for both the employees as well as the

customers Easy to Invoke • No questions asked , “customer’s discretion” guarantee

• Commitment encourages Accellion to provide excellent service, failing which the company would have to bear high risks to compensate customers

How effective will it be in communicating service excellence to potential and current customers?

Listening Gap

• Sufficient market research has been done but there is constant scope of improvement

• Adequate Service recovery provided in case of service failure but customer’s dynamic expectations could be challenging

Service Design and Standard

Gap

• Good Service Design :

• Efficient• Reliable• Privacy

Service Performance Gap

• Employee clearly understand their role

• No intermediaries, direct deliveries

Communication Gap

• Over-promising• 100%

availability• Risk free

Service Excellence

• Potential Customers :• More willing to

use the service • Attracted • Reduced

perceived risks• Current

Customers :• Satisfied

customers would increase brand loyalty and WoM

Recommendations : design or implementation

Design Recommendations: Increase policy transparency by generating regular reports Should be careful while using words (99.9% instead of 100%) Add disclaimers wherever needed Should make use of competitive advantage

Implementation Recommendations: Employee more staff & ensure efficiency from the employees Regular training of employees to keep them up-to-date and

motivated Continuous improvements by keeping track of customer expectations

through surveys and feedbacks.

Question 3 : Will the guarantee be successful in creating a culture for service excellence within accellion? What else may be needed for achieving such a culture?

culture creation for service excellence

Principles of Service Excellence

1. Vision & Mission Statement2. Business Objectives3. Service Standards4. Intervention & Learning Strategy5. Organizational Alignment6. Measurement & Leadership Accountability

Attributes of Service Guarantee providing Service Excellence

• Performance Guarantee• Availability Guarantee• Customer Service Guarantee• Security and Privacy Policy

Potential Challenges

• Communication• Misalignment • Teamwork/Engagement• Conflicting Priorities• System/Processes• Service Recovery/ Problem Resolution• Accountability

Question 4: Do you think customers might take advantage of this guarantee and ‘stage’ service failures to invoke the guarantee?If yes, how could accellion minimize potential cheating on its guarantee?

potential cheating on service guarantee

Drivers for Cheating

Details Triggers Steps to minimize the Potential Cheating

Potential Material Gain

• There is no strong relationship between amount of compensation and cheating

• Unethical situational Variables

• External pressure• Dissatisfaction• Machiavellianism

• Difficult to address if customers are unethical

To get long term relationship

• To get high involvement in service • Switching cost is higher and time

consuming• To achieve priority

• Triggered due to Personality variables

• To become the locus of control

• Introduce customer loyalty program

Level of Satisfaction

Cheating increases when the customer is • Unhappy • Perceives unfair treatment• Dissatisfied with the service

• Triggered due to inhibitory situational variables

• Attitudes

• Provide seamless and high quality service to the customers

Ease of invoking a Guarantee

• Presence of opportunities to commit an unethical behavior can be seen as a motivator for cheating

• Triggered due to inhibitory situational and personality variables

• Conditions should be explained in detail

• Breach of contract should be specified

THANK YOU