Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated

solutions at Caterpillar
.

CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENT

Using Services Marketing to Develop and Deliver
Integrated Solutions at Caterpillar in Latin America

Group 2
Harish Deepak
Shiv Shankar Mahto
Kirity Kumar

IIM RANCHI

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

What else do you need to learn in the Listening Gap (Gap 1) about
customer needs and expectations? LACD had general information
from the customer value surveys, but this information did not tell
them what service features customers expected in the CSAs. What
were they and how could they find out? In particular, how could
they find out what they needed to know to established standards in
the Design and Standards Gap (Gap 2)?
Not knowing what customers expect is one of the root causes of not
delivering to customer expectations. Hence it is really important to learn and
understand customer expectations and gap between Company perceptions &
customer expectations. We need to learn about the

Features of service which are important to customers

What level of these features customer expect

What customers think the company can and should do when problems
occur in service delivery

From the case, we came to know some of general attributes of CSA and their
respective importance with respect to customers expectations. The following
features in these attributes customers might expect in CSA
1.

2.

Responsiveness :
o

Fast action on receipt of complaint/Breakdown Machine

Immediate availability of required spare parts & maintenance

personnel

Can perform right job at the first time itself

Reliability:
2

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

3.

4.

Excellent quality of Product

Trustworthy personnel who are able to do job as required

Service available when needed

Assurance:
o

M/C ready on time as promised

Performs only necessary work

Correct and genuine parts being used during maintenance

Relationship :
o Courteous and friendly service
o

5.

Exchange of information frequently

Tangibles :
o

Response in mail

Fliers & brochures

Proper documentation of job performed with spares used

Demonstration life calculation sheets of spare parts of equipment

such as Pumps, Compressors, Valves, seals, actuators etc.
These features and expectations can be found out through following:
a. By create dialogue with important customers through dinner meetings
or get-together: As people used to share lot of information during
dinner and drinks table
b. By organizing hotel seminars, meeting at various social gatherings :
Dealer persons, Regional Sales Manager can conduct seminar where
people from dealer together with contact points of customer shall be
invited to have face to face interaction which later lead to friendship
and efficient flow of information

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

c. Developing personal relationship : Generally people disclose and

confide when they trust the other person
d. But in order to know, exactly what service features customers expect,
CAT marketing team shall have to go to market and conduct customer
research. This research should have a clear objective What services
features customers are expecting in the CSAs? With this research they
shall be able to confirm that
Best practices should always be adopted and broad based throughout any
company. The case says that on analysis of various factors CAT identified
characteristics of the tAlong with them following are some key facts:

Equipment are used in various segments (Construction, Mining,

Agriculture, Forestry etc.)

Some customers buy equipment together with service agreement

Service agreement takes care regarding refurbishment of equipment

and maintaining the uptime and productivity

It also emphasis on having equipment for 100% of the time

Customer pay for CSA and repair services to achieve these goals

Customer who buy complex and sophisticated equipment such as Long

wall, Continuous miners and construction equipment would like to go
ahead with CSA

Customer who buy general equipment would like to carry maintenance

by their own

These customers do not value for uptime and productivity too much

There are some customers who operate internationally whereas CAT

has regional dealers, these customers requires or need a single
contact point regarding CSAs. Moreover, customer want to have a
single stop service agency which can service their entire fleet of
equipment whether be CAT, Komatsu, Volvo, etc.

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

CUSTOME
R
GAP 1: The Listening Gap
COMPANY

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

Should they offer different CSAs to the different segments of general

construction? What would that imply for research, standards, and
implementation?

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

What standards and measures should be set in the Design and Standards
Gap (Gap 2) to deliver to customer expectations? How formal should they
be? How should LACD create and design the new CSAs? How should they
get everyone in the dealerships to learn about them and get on board to
deliver them?

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

How should the dealerships overcome all the Performance Gap (Gap 3)
issues that they faced in order to insure consistent delivery?

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

What internal and external materials were necessary to communicate the

CSAs to salespeople and customers? What else would be needed?

Case Study Assignment: Using Services Marketing to Develop and deliver Integrated
solutions at Caterpillar

Draw a blueprint for the case.

10