It’s no secret that maintenance contracts and after-market services translate into a big revenue opportunity for manufacturers and their channel partners. The challenge lies in optimizing this recurring revenue stream and addressing 100% of the opportunity.

Lack of proper reporting – not to mention a lack of insight into organizational service sales performance – is one big reason why many organizations fail to increase service revenue.

The reality is that many sales managers are in the dark about how well they’re performing with regard to service attach rates and renewals.

And that’s because their sales key performance indicators (KPI) and reporting dashboards are centered on new logo acquisition rather than the recurring service revenue side of the business.

That’s the way things worked in the past, and they worked well at that time, but those of us in the services business know that a huge shift is taking place in the global economy: the new world order revolves around services – not necessarily new logos.

Services sold as after-market offerings are where customer growth, loyalty and expansion begins, and where ongoing revenue is assured. And we’ve all heard the claim that the cost of sale to a new customer is substantially higher than the cost of sale to existing customers.

So what’s holding organizations back from tracking and reporting on the KPIs that might matter most to their after-market sales success? It might be company culture, or an absence of a dedicated service sales team.

Another reason could be an unwillingness to let go of antiquated notions about the value of attached services and retention programs. However, a more accurate explanation for the exclusion of service sales KPIs points to the complexities involved in enriching and interpreting the types of data you need to gain clear insight into your service sales business.

NEXT: The Data Dilemma