The Vice President of Microsoft\'s Product Support Services (PSS) Division has a

Question

The Vice President of Microsoft's Product Support Services (PSS) Division has asked the Director of Marketing, Trish May, to lead a task force. The task force must formulate the firm's technical support efforts. Previously, each product manager determined support service policy for his or her product. Because Microsoft marketed over 150 products, the result was a hodgepodge of service offerings that customers found confusing. Moreover, some customers were angry because they were being forced to pay for service they didn't need on basic products, while others were dissatisfied because they could not get prompt service on more technical products even though they were willing to pay extra. In addition to customer disenchantment, the task force would have to find a way to slow escalating service costs that threatened long-term company profitability. Trish and her task force have to devise an overall strategy for support services.  

After reading the case, provide detailed discussions of the following issues:

What factors suggest that Microsoft's PSS Division needs a more comprehensive and flexible approach for its service offerings?

Based upon the guidelines senior management provided, what product support strategy has Microsoft envisioned?

How should the Microsoft Support Network 1.0 be structured? Which services should be offered "free or standard", optional for an additional fee, or not offered.  Use Exhibit 5 in the case as a guideline.

What implementation problems should PSS managers anticipate and how can they overcome them?

Explanation / Answer

1) The telephone emotionally supportive network was less proficient as 60% of the guests were getting a bustling tone when attempted to get to. There was no single administration choice and each item had a different service channel. The corporate clients who had paid for a help benefit needed to sit tight for a longer time than the non-paid clients with straightforward issues. Likewise, clients couldn't get sophisticated bolster benefits on a portion of Microsoft's recently presented line of exceptionally technical advanced frameworks, regardless of whether they were ready to pay additional. The administration costs were continuously increasing even up to a tune of over 10% of income in most item bunches which was clearly demonstrated by the action based costing.

2) The item bolster system imagined by Trish May is the plan of a lattice-based methodology, which either maps client benefit classifications with item classifications or administration classes with client portions. The administration classifications could be of two kinds:

Issue Based

Responsiveness Based

The goal of the system was to rearrange and unite the client benefit contributions. They likewise needed to make the administration contributions sufficiently straightforward to comprehend, impart, and execute. It likewise tried to address concerns, for example, when and how to charge for these administrations. Consistently the system was to guarantee that clients ought not feel that they are being charged for beforehand free administrations. At first advancement of a general procedure for help administrations were required, that would be basic enough to comprehend, convey, and execute. Second, they needed to address a few strategic concerns such as when and how to charge for these administrations. From the get-go in their examinations, the team hit upon utilizing a lattice to outline the different administration contributions. Individuals alluded to it as the Microsoft Support Network 1.0. This was an inventive way to deal with the client bolster issue that Microsoft confronted. The idea of an administration offering network got energetic and all-inclusive endorsement among Microsoft administrators, however there was across the board difference over the make-up of the lines, segments, and components, because there were some extraordinary courses accessible for its development.

3) The lines of the grid would comprise of real administration groupings, while the segments would catch the distinctions in those administrations crosswise over item or client section classifications. Thusly, every component in the lattice would portray a administration offering and incorporate a charge structure. To stay away from client perplexity, the gathering presumed that 4 lines and 4 sections ought to be the biggest size of the lattice; be that as it may, no exploration had been done to affirm this. As was said above there was difference about how to build the lines and segments of the grid. There were some unique methodologies: Problem-Based Service Rows, Responsiveness-Based Service Rows, Product Category Columns and Customer Segment Columns.

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