Sustainability via extended warranty contracts: design for a consumer electronics retailer

Abstract

Warranty is one of the most important attributes of any product, from both manufacturer and consumer points of view. Although the retailers connect manufacturers to customers by selling goods, traditionally, they have isolated themselves from warranty-related matters such as customer complaints and maintenance costs. However, recent trends in consumer behavior toward extended warranty contracts have changed this approach. While retailers have started to generate considerable revenue from the sale of these contracts, sustainability is also achieved by longer product life cycles. This study analyzed the failure behavior of different classes of cell phone products and their related costs through a chain of consumer electronics retailer operating in Türkiye. To compete on pricing and customer service, a novel policy was designed for the retailer to honor the contracts in house rather than underwriting to a third party insurer as the industry standard. The maintenance records of 328 previous failures were analyzed to plot a failure model. Failure mode and effects analysis was carried out to identify failure classes and the respective costs for extended warranty design for cell phones. The expected warranty costs for coverage of the third, fourth, and fifth years of operation were determined. The results show that the retailer may achieve the same level of profit by increasing customer satisfaction along with the sustainability of the product through repair actions.