Proactive Postsales Service: When and why does it Pay Off?

Abstract

Proactive postsales service (PPS) refers to a supplier taking the initiative to contact a customer to provide service after a sale is complete. It is argued that PPS leads to faster delivery of service to a broader cross-section of customers than customer-initiated postsales service, or reactive postsales service. The authors argue that mental frames of customers and suppliers engaged in PPS are more positive and open than mental frames of those engaged in customer-initiated service. On the basis of nine focus groups with 94 managers in both business-tobusiness and business-to-consumer settings, the authors propose three main dimensions of PPS: (1) proactive prevention, (2) proactive education, and (3) proactive feedback seeking. They argue that PPS leads not only to favorable customer-level outcomes (e.g., customer satisfaction) but also to favorable supplier-level outcomes (e.g., greater innovativeness, new product success rate). The authors propose that the value of PPS varies depending on the product's life-cycle stage, its transaction extensiveness, and network externality. In addition, the value of PPS varies depending on a customer's usage intensity, openness to experience, and market mavenism. Some key challenges with PPS pertain to implementation issues, such as privacy intrusion, expectation escalation, user identification, and contact routinization. If neglected, these can result in PPS leading to negative rather than positive outcomes. The authors develop guidelines for addressing these challenges and implementing PPS effectively in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts.

Creating value in business relationships: The role of sales

“…Against this background and in line with discovery-oriented research on neglected topics (cf. Challagalla, Venkatesh, & Kohli, 2009), for the present research we employ a combination of two approaches. First, we draw on the limited research related to the value-creating role of sales and, based on the features of the value-creating processes in business relationships, we derive implications for the role of sales in these processes.…”

Return on Interactivity: The Impact of Online Agents on Newcomer Adjustment

“…In the marketing literature, Challagalla, Venkatesh, and Kohli (2009) suggest that reactive behavior related to employee-customer interactions is associated with negative customer sentiment and reduces the customer's cognitive load, in effect hampering the customer's ability to adjust to new or unfamiliar settings. They argue that reactive interactions come later in the service or product usage process, and thus reactive interactions on behalf of the firm and the customer may diminish or delay the value or utility obtained from product and service use and may result in greater risk for incorrect usage.…”

Proactive Customer Education, Customer Retention, and Demand for Technology Support: Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…We also distinguish PCE from proactive sales or cross-selling engagements (e.g., Harker 1999, Armony andGurvich 2010), because in our context the education is offered by technical staff and not by sales representatives. We specifically examine proactive education (Challagalla et al 2009) that is offered after customers initially sign up for the service. Typically, PCE occurs as customers are taking their initial steps in coproducing the service (i.e., adapting the service to their idiosyncratic needs).…”

“…Education can make customers more efficient (i.e., they need less input to produce the service output), and in turn reduce the costs to the provider of serving them (Xue and Harker 2002). However, proactive education can also lead to escalated expectations, whereby customers continue expecting and seeking constant assistance from the provider (Challagalla et al 2009). Education could also lead to increased demand for support if the information presented to customers is unstructured (Kumar and Telang 2012).…”