Samsung’s latest investment in customer service

The new service centre will be a place for Samsung customers – the existing and potential buyers – to drop in and seek support and advice on any Samsung products, discuss servicing requirements or arrange an in-home repair at  convenient time.
To ensure that the centre provides the highest standard of customer service, Samsung has authorised Visual FX – a professional service repair provider, specialising in AV products, which runs centres in various UK and European locations – to manage the centre on its behalf. The service centre employs a total 55 staff including 25 engineers. Mr M.S. Kim, managing director of Samsung Electronics UK, who officially opened the Customer Service Plaza, commented: “In 2007, Samsung sold 1.2 million LCD TVs and 200,000 Plasma TVs, so the need for service support, especially in the consumer electronics area, is growing rapidly. Service is a very important marketing tool and a differentiator in the current market.”
The expected turnaround time of repairs at the centre is between three to five days, while many repairs will be completed the next day in home depending on the customer’s availability. The customers who bring their products will be able to have them examined by expert technicians, who, when possible, will attempt to repair them on site on a ‘while-you-wait’ basis. The continuation of this service provision will be the fleet of service vehicles in which engineers will be able to service customers’ products, especially large TV panels, in their homes quicker and more efficiently.
It is anticipated that the majority of the centre’s users will be individual customers seeking the repair of their equipment. However, it is also at the disposal of Samsung retail partners who either can refer their customers to the Customer Plaza or use its facilities and expertise for the whole or part of the service they undertake for the customers.
The role of specialist centres
James Lane, Samsung AV service division manager, has spoken to IER about Samsung’s plans for the centre: “Since CE products are evolving fast, there will be more interconnectivity, with the development of technologies such as Bluetooth, so there will be a need for competences to be under one roof, as products will start talking to one another. The growing sophistication of the products also means that not all retailers are able to service them. Hence there will be a growing need for centers which have specialist knowledge and facilities, including a mobile fleet of engineers able to get to customer homes.”
James also commented on the evolution of customer service: “Customers have less and less time and they want their problems solved quickly, therefore our approach is to repair things as fast as possible. First time fix rate is very important; repairing things in customers’ homes is vital too. We want customers to think: ‘OK, I had a problem but it was fixed so quickly’. We would like them to remember this as a good experience.”