Last week, Mack Trucks invited journalists to visit its expansive Customer Center in Allentown, Pa., and meet with Stephen Roy, Mack’s new president of sales and marketing. Roy’s message was clear – Mack is turning its focus to the Class 8, on-highway truck market in 2014, with the goal to break through 10% market share in the North American truck market up to Class 8.

“It’s not just the product, it’s also the product support and product solutions,” Roy stressed. “On the highway side, we know it’s important to have a strong network. We’ve invested $350 million in facilities. We’ve increased our bay capacity size by 40%, technicians by 50%, one in every four is a master tech, top certification.”

With GuardDog Connect – Mack’s telematics solution – the company also has geo-fences around its dealerships. Starting in 2014, the company will know when a truck comes into the dealership and when a truck leaves.

“It’s not there to be Big Brother,” Roy explained. “It’s there so that we know when one of our trucks is at the dealership and then we can assist that dealer. We’ll call the dealer and say, ‘We noticed this truck came in, what can we do to help?’”

Mack Trucks is also building a three-story up-time center in Allentown, Pa., to bring Mack support staff that can help expedite a truck – technical support, Mack OneCall agents and parts expediters – under one roof. The facility is expected to be completed in October.

“Mack is known for our vocational side, but now because we have the network support, which is key, to get back in front of our highway customers and let them know that we have a value proposition for them; we have a network to support them; that we have unique offerings like GuardDog. I think the last step is investing in our sales people and salesmanship,” Roy said. “It’s not going to happen over night. You have to prove yourself. We have to get a demo in the fleet and prove our fuel economy and that when they have an issue, we’ll be there to support them.”