Archived Copies of Warranty Week

December 2002 to Today

Are Retailers Paying Too Much for Their Extended Warranty Programs? In order to maximize retail margins and customer loyalty in a post-COVID-19 world, retailers will need to reconsider every aspect of their operations, from floor planning, staff training, vendor management, and customer engagement strategies, to their extended warranty programs.
September 17, 2020
CCHS Changes Name to Cinch Home Services: Cross Country Home Services, a top home warranty provider, has changed its name to highlight its effort to leverage web and mobile technology to improve the customer experience and make its services a cinch to use.
October 31, 2019
Extended Protection Plans: While warranty data is the starting point, warranty analytics is what drives the business. Warranty analytics can be used to create an intelligent extended protection plan that identifies the types of failures, which customers are most impacted by them, and what the root cause might be. This, in turn, also helps determine the right level of coverage to meet the customer's risk profile.
March 14, 2019
WCM Pre-Conference Workshops:  Warranty professionals heading to Orlando for the 15th annual Warranty Chain Management Conference could arrive a day early to attend any of six different workshops on topics such as fraud detection, claims handling, customer satisfaction, and how to launch or expand a commercial or consumer service contract program.
February 21, 2019
Extended Protection Plans:
Breaking Down Risk Management Options: Service contracts sold by dealers or manufacturers to buyers of commercial products such as construction equipment can increase resale value, raise customer loyalty, boost uptime, and lower operating costs. But before extended protection plan sales can begin, the advantages and disadvantages of various risk management options must be considered.
June 7, 2018
Extended Protection Plans: Service contracts sold by dealers to buyers of products such as construction equipment can increase resale value, raise customer loyalty, boost uptime, and lower operating costs. But before extended protection plan sales can begin, dealers have several risk management options to consider.
November 30, 2017
GWSCA Conference Overview: With a theme centered around the role of warranty and service contracts in customer engagement, this year's annual meeting and conference runs from Wednesday afternoon to Friday at lunchtime.
September 15, 2016
Warranty Workshops: In less than two weeks, a team of warranty and service contract experts are going to conduct six half-day workshops aimed at both basic and advanced practitioners of topics such as warranty metrics, analytics, legal issues, service delivery, cost-cutting, revenue-raising, and ultimately an improved customer experience.
March 3, 2016
Warranty Workshops: Warranty can have a massive effect on customer satisfaction. And the loyalty of the customer can have a massive effect on future sales and profitability. So how to balance the protection of a company against the contentment of its customers?
March 5, 2015
Effective Warranty Management for Improved Customer Satisfaction and Profitability in 2015: After conducting an extensive survey of the global warranty chain management community last year, Strategies For Growth president Bill Pollock has put together a results package consisting of a white paper, a webinar, and a WCM workshop on the subject of current trends in warranty management.
January 29, 2015
The Post-Purchase Experience: More than just a buzzword, it's becoming an important part of customer loyalty. Consumers who feel their service contracts can provide a better level of customer service will buy them again, just for the convenience of knowing who to call when they need a repair.
October 23, 2014
The End of Warranty Cost-Cutting? For ten straight years, manufacturers steadily reduced their warranty expense rates from over 1.8% of their sales revenue to under 1.3%. But in the eleventh year, the declines stopped coming. Could it be that there's no more left to cut? And have manufacturers instead begun to spend more on the customer experience?
March 20, 2014
m-ize Transforms the Warranty Experience: For years, cutting costs has been the main focus of warranty departments. As the economy turns around, companies are now changing the focus of their warranty spending onto improving the customer experience. Warranty can drive sales by providing a better service experience to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and repeat purchases.
March 13, 2014
New Approaches to Warranty Management: For many years it was all about cost reduction. Now, there's little left to cut. And both manufacturers and retailers are looking for ways to improve the customer experience by launching new types of protection services and new generations of warranty automation systems.
March 6, 2014
Aerospace & Appliance Warranties: From airplanes to air conditioners, each industry has a typical cost of warranty based on the product it makes and what kind of customer it attracts. Business-to-business products such as airplanes have lower expense rates than consumer-facing products such as home appliances.
February 6, 2014
The Abt Experience: Not content to merely collect a sales commission and be done with it, Abt Electronics keeps tight local control over its extended warranties and service organization from a single location. And customer loyalty? We're talking customer love.
February 17, 2011
The First Service Contract: A GE appliance dealer sold it to a customer in Chicago nearly 77 years ago, along with a refrigerator that turned out to be highly reliable. Yet the same sales drivers used back then -- peace of mind, repair costs and technological worries -- still work today.
February 3, 2011
Design for Warranty: Products can be designed so that not only can they be fixed faster, but also so they can be fixed by customers themselves. Given that labor is the major component of warranty claims, product designs that plan for customer self-repairs can cut costs.
March 11, 2010
Warranty Fraud Detection: SAS says send us your claims data and we'll show you the fraud. If upwards of 10% to 15% of claims are in some way suspect, such a system could pay for itself in just a few months. Does it sound too good to be true? GE Appliances was the first customer.
February 25, 2010
Aerospace Warranty Trends: Unlike the computer and passenger car industries, in the commercial aviation industry the customer-facing brand names and their suppliers share warranty costs much more equitably. Then again, these multi-million-dollar jets and helicopters are hardly consumer products. And since safety and reliability are such top priorities, consistently low warranty costs are to be expected.
April 9, 2009
The Value of Warranty Expertise: Is warranty management merely a clerical skill, or is there more to it than just paperwork? Some see warranty as not only a leading indicator of product quality but also a major chance to impress a customer. However, that conversation can only take place if the warranty professional is trained to do more than merely process and pay claims.
January 15, 2009
Verizon's Extended Warranties: Carrier to leverage monthly billing and longtime customer relationships in a bid to sell service plans for TVs, PCs and phones plugged into its networks.
October 23, 2008
NEW Acquires ServiceBench: One is a leading service plan administrator and call center operator. The other is a major network hub for warranty professionals. Together they can set the standard for warranty claims processing, customer care, extended warranty administration, service dispatch, and end-of-life recycling.
January 23, 2008
Warranty Definition: Rather than counting what warranty costs a company internally, manufacturers should instead look at what it costs the customer and the brand image externally. Warranty is an opportunity for a company to listen to its customers, and improve the integrity of its brand image.
July 31, 2007
The Chief Warranty Officer: Having detected something of a plateau in warranty activity, one speaker at the WCM Conference calls for the creation of a job position that cuts across the many departments with interests in warranty.

Yet some top executives still see warranty as nothing but a cost that needs to be reduced, and pay little attention to its potential to increase customer loyalty or build a brand's image of quality. Perhaps that's why a warranty champion is needed?
March 20, 2007
Extended Warranty Bankruptcies: Like a tree falling in the woods, recent dot-com warranty failures went largely unnoticed by the media and unpredicted by either the regulators or the ratings agencies. So how can a customer be expected to make the right choice?
February 7, 2006
Customer Recovery: While efforts to push warranty costs back onto suppliers have met with limited success, a handful of manufacturers have pushed most if not all of their warranty expenses back onto their customers.
January 24, 2006
Warranty Webinar: Early warning systems allow manufacturers to detect emerging issues before they become major liabilities. In a roundtable discussion, experts suggest the best strategies for implementing these systems, and how to use them to reduce warranty cost, boost product quality, and increase customer satisfaction.
October 4, 2005
Warranty Conference,
Part Four: Your best customers buy extended warranties. And the proper administration of extended warranties can boost customer loyalty. Two top executives explain how it's done.
March 29, 2005
Warranty Analysis Software: Skeptical buyers and long sales cycles can be overcome with relevant demos using a customer's own data.
January 25, 2005
Selling Customer Care: While an extended warranty is a type of insurance contract, NEW sells it as an enhanced customer assistance program, promising consumers 24x7 access to advice and boosting customer loyalty for retailers.
October 19, 2004
Setting Warranty Policy for Products That Generate Annuity Streams: Most warranty-management analysis concerns warranty as cost, the effect of warranty on customer satisfaction, or the signaling impact of warranty on customers. This article describes a study where the focus was not on the product under warranty, but rather on the effect that warranty length might have on the sales of related peripherals and supplies. These sales generate annuity streams for the manufacturer as long as the product remains in operation. However, cost savings from a shorter warranty period must be weighed against potential lost profit from reduced annuity streams. A shorter warranty policy might cause products to drop out of active use sooner, and the cost savings from a shorter warranty policy therefore might be outweighed by the lost annuity profits.
July 13, 2004
Guarantees, Customer Service and Chips? How RFID Can Transform
the Warranty Industry
September 2, 2003