A PIM for service companies? But what’s the point?
30 August 2023
A PIM (Product Information Manager) enables companies to centralise, manage and distribute data and information relating to their products. At first glance, therefore, it does not appear to be aimed at service companies, but rather at businesses with a large number of product listings for online sale, such as those in the fashion, luxury goods, household appliances, DIY or food and drink sectors.
However, the principles and features of a PIM are not so at odds with the growing needs of service-based companies. In fact, a ‘Product Information Manager’ does not deal with physical ‘products’ for these businesses. Nevertheless, implementing a PIM when selling services is highly relevant. This article explains why.
Understanding PIM: the basics and its features
A PIM is therefore a platform that enables companies to collect, manage and enrich information relating to their products from a single location, before distributing it consistently across various distribution channels (website, retailers, distributors, etc.).
Some PIMs are SaaS-based and others are open-source, which presents some notable differences depending on your current needs and future business objectives.
Thanks to certain features, a PIM helps businesses reduce their time to market, standardise their sales proposition, enhance the customer experience and, more generally, accelerate brands’ omnichannel strategies. For the Quable PIM, these features are:
- The PIM component: which enables the management, enrichment and distribution of product-related text information.
- The DAM component: which performs the same functions as the PIM, but this time for visual data, namely media, videos, photos and other assets.
- The brand portal: which offers the ability to control access to and distribution of product information, or parts thereof, to the brand’s distributors and retailers.
- Quable Apps: a sort of app store giving brands the ability to connect with other technology and e-commerce applications to boost and enhance their use of the Quable PIM.
- The workflows module, which helps establish smooth, consistent and efficient work processes, ensuring optimal operational efficiency for teams.
Quable PIM comprises numerous other features (Analytics, product sheets, premium services), all of which enable companies selling products online to do so effectively, thereby contributing to their commercial success and growth. These are objectives that service companies also aim to achieve.
How are the needs of service-based companies evolving?
As with companies selling physical products, service companies have seen their needs become increasingly digitised. In this regard, certain processes and ways of working are moving more towards automation; services are becoming increasingly personalised; and customers and prospects are always looking for more information online about the service they are seeking. Information relating to services must therefore be of high quality, consistent across all channels (website, retailers, distributors, etc.) and uniform.
Service companies, as well as needing to be agile and flexible in response to trends in certain sectors, must be able to analyse their data in order to make relevant and impactful decisions based on these analyses. To improve their offerings and consistently satisfy their customers, it is therefore essential to know how to collect, manage and disseminate this data effectively. Certain sectors are also more susceptible to changes, regulatory constraints and legislation, such as the healthcare sector, for example.
Finally, service companies need a collaborative platform to communicate and work seamlessly, both remotely – following the rise of remote working – and in person. Their processes and data must be equipped with optimal security to protect information relating to the services they offer.
PIM for service companies
Just as with businesses that need to manage product data for the physical goods they sell, PIM fully meets the needs of service companies.
Firstly, PIM can centralise all the information and data relating to the services offered by service companies. This may therefore include details of the services in question, descriptions, visuals and media (through the use of a DAM, or Digital Asset Manager), prices, terms and conditions, and so on.
Secondly, to maintain a coherent and consistent brand image, product information must be standardised across all channels. This objective can only be achieved through the use of a PIM platform tailored to service companies. By centralising data on a single platform, textual and visual information is standardised, thereby strengthening the brand’s credibility.
A company that chooses a PIM to manage its product information ensures a highly optimised and personalised customer experience. By storing the various variants of an offering, the Quable PIM solution enables businesses to offer services tailored to customers’ specific needs.
With a PIM platform, service companies can scale up their omnichannel strategy. Product data is distributed across different channels in just a few clicks, and the information remains consistent regardless of the channel – be it the brand’s social media, a service provider or an e-commerce site.
Finally, PIM enables better collaboration and operational efficiency through the implementation of tailored workflows between teams. The various departments (marketing, product, R&D, etc.) can work harmoniously and simultaneously on product data. Thanks to analytics and performance tools, teams can track their work and results, thereby identifying the offers and services that appeal most to customers, as well as current trends and customer demands.
The Quable PIM platform and service providers
Several companies offering services have opted for the Quable PIM solution.
In the tourism sector, this is particularly the case for our client Club Med, which has been able to optimise the digital management of its product information. With the Quable platform, this leading French tourism brand has been able to streamline internal collaboration amongst its 300 staff members within an international context and effectively translate its product information into over 30 languages.
As a result, the brand’s omnichannel distribution is optimised: product data is automatically distributed across all of Club Med’s channels – tour operators, partners, the brand’s website, etc. – ensuring a consistent and uniform customer experience.
The same was true for our client Touristra, another player in the tourism sector, which was able to work seamlessly across teams using the Quable PIM, all in three languages. By managing data from 250 holiday resorts in a consistent manner, the customer experience was streamlined across multiple channels. Print sales support materials (catalogues, brochures, etc.) could also be generated in just a few clicks and easily exported to partners: agencies, websites, tour operators, etc.
Other clients have also integrated the Quable PIM into their digital strategy, such as Korian in the healthcare sector and E-tail Agency.
Conclusion
Just as with companies selling physical products, the Quable PIM solution has a vital role to play in the digital strategy of service-based companies.
Once implemented, the Quable PIM platform will enable better management of data relating to the services on offer, improved translation and therefore language management, optimised collaboration between departments and teams, and a standardised customer and product experience.
The PIM will undoubtedly be a beneficial tool that drives growth for service-based companies. Its flexibility will enable them to remain more agile in the market and thus respond to changing customer needs, industry trends and competitors.