Innovation was a word uttered
frequently in Munich, and a changing approach to customer
service was highlighted as fundamental to meeting the challenges
facing the leasing industry.
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Leaders from
major bank-owned lessors, specialist independents and industry
outsiders all called on a greater focus on the customer to help
advance the industry.
First to broach the topic in an
entertaining and illuminating speech was Massimiliano Moi, chief
executive of UniCredit Leasing, who introduced the audience to a
new customer satisfaction technique he has implemented in his
business.
Opposed to the old style of
customer satisfaction surveys with hundreds of questions which
generate “an encyclopaedia of results”, Moi said UniCredit’s
approach was to reduce the time spent analysing and maximise the
action taken.
The approach, called Listen to Act,
was generating significant results, said Moi.
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By GlobalData“Customer satisfaction is not for
our internal use, it is for our customers,” he said.
“A satisfied customer gives us
anywhere from 40-220% higher volume of business – he is happy and
works with us more. It’s pretty intuitive.”
Moi said UniCredit’s research had
shown customers are not necessarily interested in price first and
foremost.
“One key driver for customers is
speed of action,” he told the audience. “If you give an answer
quicker than your competitor you immediately gain. Discussion of
price comes second or third.”
Customer satisfaction is now
integrated into UniCredit Leasing’s bonus scheme and is part of
career development within the company.
His words were echoed by the
speaker who followed him, Artti Aurasmaa, chief executive of IT
service provider 3 Step IT.
He said: “Employee satisfaction is
vital. Customer satisfaction is driven by employee satisfaction and
only satisfied customers drive growth.”
Aurasmaa said it was an exciting
time to be in leasing because the market is challenging and the
industry needs to innovate.
Speaking specifically on the IT
leasing sector, he said innovation was in providing added value to
customers – both end users and the client business – and that is
delivering IT as a service.
“Everything must be as a service
now,” said Aurasmaa. “We are no longer selling a rate but selling
functionality, selling added value.”
This, he said, was especially true
for IT leasing as it is consumers, not their employers, who drive
the technology market and people demand this additional
service.
It was in reference to Aurasmaa’s
words that Patrick Gouin, head of the high tech division with
Société Générale Equipment Finance, urged the auditorium to talk up
the whole leasing sector as a service.
He said: “IT is the sector which is
much more service-based [but] all leasing is a pure service
business.
“We should stop talking about
pricing; our business is not about money and margins – it is a
service and this is how we should talk about it.
“Customer focus is not just the
person who talks to the customer or the vendor, it is all the value
chain behind; all the others in the middle and the back.
“It is service and that means an
alignment of capabilities – risk and back office need to understand
what sales are telling customers.”
There will be disagreement on many
of the strategic challenges which lay ahead for the industry, but a
new focus on the customer seems to be collectively agreed upon.
As Chris Cooper of Challenge Consulting told the audience in the
final session of the day, beyond regulatory changes, sustaining
profitability and serving the customer are the main issues facing
the industry.
See also:
Conference opens with big
questions
Using leasing to ‘look
better’
Small companies present
opportunities
