A Service Industry that should deliver AV Support.
There has been much discussion of late within the smart home and luxury AV sector around the question of support services for AV customers. Experienced installation companies such as Prestige Audio, industry trade bodies and manufacturers have been encouraging the whole industry to see itself as a ‘service industry’ rather than one that simply supplies products.
In general terms this means seeing relationships between installers and customers as long term and focused on delivering ‘experiences’, not just products. The cornerstone of delivering on this promise is the provision of support and service contracts as a standard practice within an installation company’s offering. At Prestige Audio we have been making these part of our offering for many years, but what does this actually deliver to the customer? and why is it important?
Our team plans, executes and installs all our systems with extreme care as these are high-performance products. To install them and then simply walk away and leave the customer to it, would only be doing half a job in not just practical terms but also for customer relations. For our team and installers like us, installing the system is just the start, we offer various different levels of AV support and service contracts. All our systems receive regular support to make sure they are performing at the correct standard. Customers can also choose to go further and opt for something that makes sure they have our expertise on tap 24/7, even if they are unaware of it as our systems work in the background monitoring and maintaining system health automatically.
No advanced or high-performance product or system is infallible, making sure a customer’s investment is protected by regular maintenance and upgrades is just sensible practice, you would not purchase a high-performance car and never service it, the same applies here.
Preventative AV Maintenance
There are two main areas that are covered by our service contracts these being, Preventative Maintenance and Monitoring Services. The first category offers differing levels of cover including same day AV support services. Preventative Maintenance monitors which maintains the systems health in a proactive fashion, preventing any dips in performance or operational issues before they happen. Often the customer is completely unaware that the system is being monitored and kept in tip top condition, but they are aware of the peace of mind and the high levels of performance that this approach delivers.
This type of approach also includes regular physical AV support visits to the site to ensure everything is running correctly, with advanced connected systems we can do a lot of the work off-site, but often there is still no substitute for an in-person visit where our decades of experience can really be leveraged fully. We can also offer these packages on systems that were not actually installed by our team.
Remote Monitoring
Monitoring Services work alongside the Preventative Maintenance offering. Using an advanced cloud-based solution we can monitor a customer’s system constantly. This allows us to be notified of any issues in real time enabling us to maintain system health and trouble shoot before any impact is felt at the end user experience. This approach also prevents unnecessary call out to the property and delivers a smoother experience for the customer. For customer who are a little more tech savvy, we can provide access to an app that will allow them to fix minor issues such a rebooting a cable box for example.
Ultimately, we are a service industry, providing smart home and high-end entertainment experiences for a myriad of different customers, but this can only be true if we deliver long-term AV support as part of the DNA of our offering, ask us about our extensive customer support packages.