Dealers: Your Partner in Uptime

Dealers are well aware that there are often issues of downtime involved in getting work done at the dealership, and they are constantly looking for ways to improve. "Dealerships are set up to take customers on a first-come, first-served basis," says Buddie Carroll, CEO of Freightliner of Knoxville in Tennessee. "Making a distinction between the small, short-term jobs and the larger jobs is difficult. To manage the time for the benefit of the customer is a challenge," but it's a challenge dealers are constantly working on, he says.

Some OEMs have addressed the issue with express lube and air-conditioning services through dealerships. But beyond that, trying to put a sort of triage into place that would prioritize jobs is cost-prohibitive for the dealership.

But there are things you can do at your end. First of all, ask your dealer if there's anything you can do to help speed things up.

For instance, see if there are procedures you can put in place to expedite authorization of repairs and payment methods. Such communications can eat up valuable time that could be spent getting the truck back on the road.

"Be careful that a truck doesn't sit at a dealership for five days waiting for scheduling or sit five days because you haven't made a decision to allow them to move forward," says Darry Stuart, owner of DWS Fleet Management Services and current general chairman of the Technology and Maintenance Council. "You spend three or four days trying to get to the appropriate people to fight for warranty [coverage], and in fact you could have made a decision to move forward and deal with it accordingly. So the inherent process of warranty approval or internal approval can severely degrade vehicle utilization. The revenue loss for a truck can be up to $800 and $1,000 a day. If you're not careful, a shop foreman or a service writer at a dealership can be costing the company money in utilization worrying about a $250 or $300 decision waiting for warranty approval."

If you need to get PMs done at dealers on the road, Carroll says, he's found that communication in advance can speed things up a lot. "There's a form for an 'A' PM and a form for a 'B', and [fleets will] give those forms in advance to the dealership where they want to have work done from time to time," he explains. "So the dealer understands when the driver comes in for a PM what they're supposed to do, so there's no phone calls back and forth."

David A. Thompson, president and CEO of Portland, Ore.-based TEC Equipment, urges truck owners to get the dealer involved earlier in the process. The American Truck Dealers Dealer of the Year says when a truck owner waits until the dealer is the measure of last resort, it often means time wasted overall. This can especially be true when dealing with complex electronic systems that may require sophisticated diagnostic tools available at the dealership.

Also, if you have some flexibility in when you bring the truck in, it can mean faster service. "We're incentivizing our fleet users to utilize us in the off hours instead of during our peak times, and trying to give a better service for them," Thompson says.

And don't forget, if you're in an emergency downtime situation with a hot load, many dealers can provide a loaner or a rental truck.

Most importantly, develop a relationship with your dealers.

"In the past, there was a lot of 'us vs. them' involved with dealers and trucking fleets," Thompson says. He believes that's changing. "These businesses need to really be true partnerships going forward. The communication is absolutely paramount between the fleet and the dealerships they've got relationships with."

Brent Hilton, director of maintenance at Arkansas-based flatbed carrier Maverick, says his relationships with the approximately 15 dealers they use on the road is important in getting trucks back on the road quickly.

"We have a dealer network in our traffic lanes that I keep in touch with on a pretty constant basis to build relationships with those folks, and that really helps us get in and out of their door," he says. "We're on the phone with those people mostly every day talking to them about issues that we're having. We have direct contacts with the foremen that work their shifts, as far as their cell phones. We're in constant communication with those individuals on our equipment."

And don't think that building relationships is limited to big fleets with lots of financial clout. Thompson admits "the smaller guys are probably warmer to some of our people's hearts." In fact, he says, at very large fleets, it may actually be a bigger challenge to develop these relationships.

"People deal with people," he says. "I think the biggest thing is early and consistent communication with the dealer in the area you're having a problem, and have local fleet people know the people at the dealership that they do business with. People always do business with people they know better than with people they don't know."