The accelerated development that technologies and communications have undergone has made it possible, instantaneously, a fact or event that occurred anywhere in the world to be immediately publicly known throughout the world.
This technological and communications development has produced important changes in the ways of doing business, companies have seen the economic benefit of the leverage of technologies in their businesses allowing strategic alliances with competitors, between leading companies that complement their skills to provide services global.
Companies have understood that they must be open to establish alliances with other companies with competencies and strengths in areas where their own business processes do not cover or are weak, and that it is costly to undertake and then compete successfully. Alliances that complement its strengths, allow to extend its products and services in order to develop distinctive and comparative competencies that allow it to survive and excel in increasingly demanding and more competitive markets.
These strategic alliances whose purpose has been to satisfy the needs of customers in a global way and to survive in increasingly competitive markets, has given rise to a new Service Model based on providing a service where several companies participate in construction. of the service, completely transparent for the clients, since the model provides a single face to the client.
The Model assumes relationships based on a climate of trust between the companies that participate in the alliance and on win-win relationships. These Models have been very successful in capturing new clients, and in the profits produced by partner companies. However, the model has had a great weakness in its implementation due many times to the lack of commitment of the companies participating in the alliance and above all to the company responsible for managing relationships with customers, of being the single point of contact or face to the customer.
This weakness is manifested in a very accentuated way in the edges or frontiers of the service where it is difficult to differentiate where the competence and responsibility of each participating company begins and ends.
Let me illustrate this situation with some examples. Let us think of those companies that provide Cable, Telephone and Internet services. Many times these services are provided by three different allied companies to provide this single service. Another example that we can mention is associated with cell phone services provided to travelers, many times they are links with allied companies in other countries that are associated to provide global telephone service. There are companies and businesses that sponsor the opening of credit cards of financial institutions that do not have direct dependence on each other. Another example is the services that the Condominiums offer in their facilities, such as laundry, common areas, etc. Several companies are involved in the provision of these services,many of them are unknown by customers and users.
Users and Clients do not care how many companies exist behind the provision of the service they receive, they only demand a unique face, committed to the service, and with a sufficient level of influence over other companies to provide the required support and solution. to your problems during the service life time.
He said that the weakness of this model is found in the little commitment of the service provider companies, since although it is true that their marketing strategies aimed at capturing new customers offer a unique service that leaves the feeling that the main company that markets The service is responsible for the entire service, the greatest frustration occurs when the Client or User requires support for the solution of their claims and problems.
Many times in the gray areas of the service, in the edges, edges or limits where one company begins and ends, and where the other begins. Many providers, far from assuming the commitment to customer service, to internally address complaints and claims, submit users to come from one company to another in search of a solution, all the companies involved wash their hands, producing great frustration in customers and users.
These multi-company Service Models are very successful but require a complete design of the service, identifying the edges where each company begins and where it ends, defining the cooperation, interrelation and the role of the face of the client, of the authority that the face should have. to the client, the interconnection of automated systems so that the client can route or direct complaints internally, and be attended by multidisciplinary and well-trained solving teams to diagnose and solve problems.
That is, multi-company Service Models go beyond a marketing strategy, it requires the commitment of senior managers, processes and systems designed and interconnected, multidisciplinary levels and teams, well trained, emphasizing the technical and cultural Customer service.
Only in this way can a comprehensive service be offered, but this also requires that each company be mature and have a customer-oriented structure, processes, technologies and strategy, with a customer-oriented culture rooted at all levels of organizations.
