After Sales Excellence is the operating model that transforms after-sales service from a reactive function into a strategic growth platform. According to the “What’s next in Operations?” benchmarking study by Bonfiglioli Consulting — conducted on over 100 industrial companies — only 48% of the industrial companies have a structured After Sales program, while over 31% have not yet implemented it organically. The model is based on three key macro-processes: Request to Resolution (RTR), to manage support from request to solution; Opportunity to Cash (OTC), to develop business opportunities based on installed base; and Inquiry to Learning (ITL), to transform the field experience into organizational learning. The transformation is divided into three phases — Discovery, Envisioning, Execution — and generates benefits on four levels: strategic, competitive, economic and operational. Excellent After Sales not only improves internal efficiency: it strengthens the company’s positioning, increases margins and consolidates the relationship with the customer over time.
For years, many industrial companies have considered After Sales as a secondary function: necessary, of course, but essentially reactive. An area called upon to intervene when something is not working, to manage spare parts, requests for assistance, tickets, emergencies. Today, this vision is no longer sufficient. In a scenario characterized by competitive pressure, increasing technical complexity, high customer expectations, and the need to generate more stable and recurring revenues, the after-sales service has become one of the most decisive areas for the company’s competitiveness.
The key point is simple: the market no longer purchases just a product, but a promise of results. The customer assesses not only the quality of the machine, the system or the solution purchased, but also the supplier’s ability to guarantee uptime, operational continuity, support, updates and maintenance over time. In other words, the value gradually shifts from the product to the performance. And it is precisely service management that makes this promise credible.
This change represents a cultural shift, even before it is organizational. In many industrial sectors, the product tends to become “commoditized”: basic performance becomes similar, competitors converge on similar technological standards, and the difference is no longer played solely on technical characteristics. This is where industrial technical support becomes a distinctive element. Response times, availability of spare parts, quality of support, the competence of the people, and digital tools become determining factors in customer choice and loyalty.
This is complemented by another decisive element: after-sales is often one of the areas with the highest margins. Service contracts, scheduled maintenance, spare parts, retrofits, upgrades, and premium services can generate margins higher than those from the initial sale, helping to stabilize cash flow and make revenues more predictable. A quality service increases trust, protects the customer base, and creates a positive lock-in that favors renewals, range expansion, and new business opportunities.
And the data confirm this: according to the biennial Benchmarking Study “What’s next in Operations?”, which involved more than 100 companies across multiple industries, only 48% of the sample have a structured and continuously improving After Sales function, while more than 31% have not yet implemented it organically. This is a significant gap — but also a concrete opportunity for differentiation for those who decide to invest seriously in this area.
| Size | After Sales Service | After Sales Excellence |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Intervenes when a problem arises | It anticipates needs and prevents problems |
| Revenue | Spotty and unpredictable | Recurring, planned and structural |
| Relationship with the customer | Transactional and discontinuous | Consultative and continuous |
| Data | Not collected or not utilized | Strategic asset for decisions and opportunities |
| KPI | Absences or partial absences | Structured, shared and monitored |
| Installed base | Set of assets to support | A treasure trove of business opportunities |
| Marginalization | Low and difficult to measure | High and measurable for contract or asset |
| Organization | Informal and responsive | Structured with defined governance and roles |
| Processes | Not standardized | End-to-end, traceable and improveable |
| Learning | Unutilized experiences | Know-how transformed into organizational intelligence |
To transform after-sales service into a platform of value, it is not enough to introduce a few KPIs or digitize ticketing. A true operational model of excellence is needed. In the framework proposed by the Bonfiglioli Consulting Knowledge Office, After Sales Excellence is developed as an integrated system on multiple levels.
At the top is the organization, which defines governance, roles, responsibilities, and coordination mechanisms. Underneath are three major areas — Sales Operations, Service Operations, and Marketing Operations — tasked with working coherently to align business development, service delivery, and customer relationship. Below are the key activities: product management, business opportunities, accounts, and service. Finally, there are enablers: process digitization, asset management, connection with the installed base, and data availability and quality.
It is precisely these elements that enable the transition from a reactive logic to a predictive, proactive, and value-oriented model throughout the customer lifecycle. In this perspective, service management is no longer just an operational function, but an ecosystem that integrates execution, knowledge, marginality, and customer experience.
An After Sales Excellence model is based on three closely interconnected macro-processes.
The first is the Request to Resolution (RTR), the process that governs the management of assistance from the initial request to the final resolution. Proper collection of information, standardized classification of the need, planning of the intervention, technical quality of the response, end-to-end traceability. Without a robust RTR, the risk is to chase urgency, multiply inefficiencies, and compromise the customer’s perception.
The second is the Opportunity to Cash (OTC), the true economic engine of the post-sales market. It is the process that allows the installed base to be read not only as a set of machines to support, but as a wealth of opportunities to be developed. Parts, maintenance, contracts, premium services, upgrades and retrofits become the subject of a structured commercial approach, capable of transforming service management into a concrete lever for growth and marginalization.
The third is the Inquiry to Learning (ITL), which closes the cycle by transforming field experience into organizational learning. Tickets, feedback, intervention data, and recurring anomalies become valuable material for improving product, processes, and internal know-how. This is where the after-sales service stops being just a ’response" and becomes industrial intelligence.
The real breakthrough occurs when RTR, OTC and ITL are managed not separately but in an integrated, end-to-end manner. Only then can service management evolve from a reactive function into a structured platform for competitiveness and revenue generation.
The transformation of after-sales service does not happen in isolated interventions. It requires a structured, progressive and coherent process divided into three phases.
1. Discovery — A rigorous understanding of the current state: analysis of the competitive context, evaluation of end-to-end processes, observation of critical subprocesses (from requests to offers, from spare parts to contracts, to field management), reading of the organizational structure, available tools, skills, and corporate culture. For companies with international presence, it is essential to examine the geographic footprint as a multi-level delivery network, evaluating its responsiveness, flexibility, cost to serve, and scalability.
2. Envisioning — Designing the future model: target organization, governance, KPIs, roadmap, and quick wins. The goal is not to imagine an abstract ideal system, but to design a TO-BE model that is sustainable and consistent with the business. The key levers to work on are four: organization, processes, tools, people, and culture. No transformation is truly effective if one of these dimensions is left behind.
3. Execution and Change Management — The often most delicate phase: program management, cross-functional involvement, targeted training, continuous monitoring of KPIs, and strong attention to cultural change. Because a new process, without new behaviors and without widespread responsibility, risks remaining just on paper.
When after-sales service is integrated in a holistic way, the benefits are distributed over four complementary levels:
An advanced model of After Sales Excellence not only improves internal efficiency: it strengthens the company’s positioning, qualifies the offering and consolidates the relationship with the customer.
The experiences gathered in the Bonfiglioli Consulting white paper show how this transformation generates concrete impacts in very different contexts.
Case 1 — Italian industrial group with an international network: it has rethought its geographic footprint, consolidated fragmented after-sales service structures and built clear processes between headquarters and subsidiaries, making the model more effective, efficient and scalable, also in view of new acquisitions.
Case 2 — Italian chemical group with offices in Europe: it worked to seize new growth opportunities for the Global Service Department. The project led to the definition of Service Level Agreements, the parameterization of the spare parts warehouse, the construction of shared KPIs, and requirements for an integrated CRM with Sales Automation, Ticketing, and Field Management, as well as a skills development plan and the launch of a structured asset management process.
Case 3 — Italian B2C company with over 50 years of history: it has optimized its technical support activities, reduced response times, and introduced KPIs to govern the area, focusing on workload mapping, reviewing tools and technical documentation, and launching specific initiatives to increase the efficiency of technical support.
For many industrial companies, after-sales service is still perceived as the "next step" after the sale. In reality, it is the place where the value of the company is consolidated every day: here, reliability, the quality of the relationship with the customer, the ability to generate recurring revenue, and the strength of the competitive positioning are measured.
After Sales Excellence is therefore much more than a support function: it is a strategic industrial platform, the lever that enables the transition from a reactive model to a predictive, advisory, data-driven and growth-oriented system. Organizations that know how to structure it with method, governance and distributed responsibility will build a stronger relationship with the market and more lasting competitiveness.
Because today, it is not just those who sell a good product that win. It is those who know how to guarantee, over time, the value of that choice that win.
After Sales Excellence is a structured operating model that transforms after-sales service from a reactive function into a strategic growth platform. It is based on the integration of processes (RTR, OTC, ITL), organization, digital tools and skills, with the goal of generating recurring margins, customer loyalty and lasting competitive advantage.
According to the "What’s next in Operations?" benchmarking study by Bonfiglioli Consulting — conducted on over 100 cross-industry companies — only 48% of the industrial companies have a structured and continuously improving After Sales function. Over 31% have not yet implemented it organically.
The three fundamental macro-processes are: the Request to Resolution (RTR), which governs the management of assistance from request to resolution; the Opportunity to Cash (OTC), which transforms the installed base into business opportunities; and the Inquiry to Learning (ITL), which converts field experience into organizational learning. The real breakthrough occurs when the three processes are managed in an integrated manner.
Service contracts, scheduled maintenance, spare parts, retrofits, and premium services can generate margins higher than those of initial sales. A structured After Sales stabilizes cash flow, makes revenues more predictable, and creates a positive lock-in that favors renewals and new business opportunities.
The transformation is divided into three phases: Discovery (analysis of the current state of processes, organization, and tools), Envisioning (designing the future model with KPIs, governance, and roadmap), and Execution (implementation with program management, training, and change management).
The main KPIs of After Sales Excellence include: average response and resolution time (MTTR), first-time fix rate, renewal rate of service contracts, contract or asset margin, Net Promoter Score (NPS) of the service, and cost to serve per customer.
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