THE NEXT STEP
One factor to consider in choosing a breakdown program is the experience and knowledge of those answering the phone. Freightliner says its Customer Assistance Center staff average 18 years of experience in the trucking industry.
Many breakdown services do more than just manage the breakdown for you. For instance, many services now offer password-protected web sites that allow users to track a breakdown's progress as well as offer a look at breakdown trends in order to reduce future breakdowns.
Penske customers can log in and get not only a progress report, but actually see all the conversations between the call center technicians, the driver, the dispatcher, the Penske shop, etc. A few services, including Ryder and Peterbilt, record all calls, which are available online.
"Many times they can see right away, 'was my driver where he was supposed to be, how long does it look like it's going to be,' " says Mary Henson, program manager for Ryder Customer Response Center. "Maybe he's got a load that needs to be somewhere at a specific time and they can't afford to wait for the repair. They could get a second vehicle out to get to their customer's site on time."
The more information you have about the status of the breakdown, the better you'll be able to make decisions such as whether another truck needs to be dispatched to take over the load. It also allows you to communicate with your customers to let them know if a pickup or delivery is going to be late.
To possibly help prevent future breakdowns, you can take advantage of the reporting and tracking capabilities now offered by many breakdown services.
For instance, Peterbilt's system allows not only real-time status tracking of a breakdown on a password-protected web site, but also provides users' historical breakdown information.
"It could be as simple as, say, an electrical problem," explains Scott Pearson, assistant general manager for sales and marketing, "where a truck's having a problem with a headlight frequently needing to be replaced. They're able to see there's something more than simply a replace-the-bulb issue."
You might want to review breakdowns by type; for instance, a high number of tire-related breakdowns might point to changes needed in your tire maintenance program.
"They can track it by driver," says Ryder's Henson. "There may be a driver that appears to have more breakdowns than others; is it the unit, or is it the driver?"
At FleetNet America, they go a step beyond and can integrate the data into maintenance software.
"Maintenance software interface and data analysis are critical cost-reduction factors for today's fleet," says Mike Hagaman, vice president of sales and marketing. "Isolating problem areas and combating them from the preventive maintenance arena is the true road to reducing breakdown frequencies and lowering maintenance costs."
Breakdown Solutions continued...
