In order to sustain profitability, integration companies can’t rely on profit margins for revenue anymore. That’s just the way it is.

Dwindling product margins, the marriage of A/V and IT and various other factors have created a commercial electronics industry in which profits must stem from service.

That’s easy for me to say.

Migrating to a service-based revenue model is daunting for integration companies that put their reputations on the line with service contract promises of elevated service.

It’s especially challenging for integrators who have been around for a few years and whose clients are accustomed to a high level of post-installation service - for free.

Service contracts also present tremendous staffing challenges since clients have a documented reason to expect beckon-call attention whenever they require it.

Some of these issues can be addressed if integrators are willing to embrace third-party help desk support - and cloud-based technology has broken down some of the associated price barriers.

Cloud-Based Customer Service

ANC Sports Enterprises, a $50 million digital signage integrator, recently partnered with help desk software provider Zendesk.

As a digital signage provider to many professional and collegiate sport venues, ANC shoulders enormous customer service responsibility. It enlists an employee to be on site during all of its clients’ events to operate the dynamic digital signage displays.

ANC partnered with Zendesk to rollout ANC Help Desk. Now, when issues arise during in-game presentations, digital signage operators can talk to remote specialists that are trained on the system. Meanwhile, a full account of the issues and troubleshooting steps is generated in an email ticket.

Just a few years ago, the level of third-party support Zendesk provides ANC was only an option for companies with extremely deep pockets, says Zendesk COO Zack Urlocker.

Cloud-based software, he says, allows companies to avoid enormous IT infrastructure investments and makes high-level third-party customer service support attainable for small- and medium-sized businesses.

“Traditionally you’d have to buy a server or a couple of servers and deploy that, plus a database and an application server and an application,” Urlocker says. “None of that is necessarily hard, but it has to be done by your IT department.” Smaller companies, he adds, often lack IT staff or infrastructure.

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About the author

Tom LeBlanc - Editor-in-Chief, CI, Tom

Tom has been covering electronics integration since 2003. Prior to being named editor-in-chief of CI, he was senior writer and managing editor of CE Pro. Before that, he wrote for the sports department of the Boston Herald. Migrating to magazines, he was a staff editor for a golf publication and an outdoor sports publication. Follow him on Twitter @leblanctom.

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