The hidden cost of service

With almost 8,000 IT companies in the UK currently showing signs of financial distress, it's time for resellers to take a good hard look at the cost of delivering their services.

Hidden costs such as couriers, postage and fixed administration are all expenses that resellers may not have considered, despite them working hard to cut costs in all other areas of their business.

That isn't saying there are easy savings to be made - most resellers have already taken action to reduce costs to ensure they survive the recession and we know that many are operating at incredibly low margins for their products in order to price-match against competitors.

However there are small steps they can take to examine where potential savings could be made, without compromising strong customer relationships.

By making more informed choices about how much their customer service is worth, resellers can identify areas where they can refine, remove or introduce charges for services.

This could be by reviewing things like free express delivery charges and looking to recover more free delivery in recharges, reviewing bespoke customer activity such as sophisticated labelling and packing requirements, or other free over-and-above activity.

By doing this, they'll not only be cutting costs but also providing an improved service to their customers by delivering value where it counts.

Phil Jones (pictured) is sales and marketing director at Brother UK

Read his thoughts here all week at Views from the Channel