Where is the tow truck?! When you have a truck sidelined by unplanned service needs, waiting is the worst. It can a minute can feel like eternity as nervous energy takes hold. Often times, a little information or a quick update can help alleviate the tension. That’s the aim of Volvo Trucks North America’s new service tracking feature baked into Volvo Action Services. The Volvo Action Service service tracking feature offers automatic dispatching and enhanced insights for the preferred vendor network. Think: Watching a tow truck en-route on a map much in the same way that you watch your ride sharing lift arrive.
The new connectivity features enables Volvo Action Service employees to expedite getting the driver back up and running by providing transparency through real-time updates throughout the breakdown event; improved estimate time of arrivals (ETAs) for roadside assistance vendors; modern service experiences with higher visibility and live tracking of the provider’s location via an interactive map. Less or shorter phone calls to customers with the option to communicate directly via text throughout the breakdown event.
For a look at how the service works, I caught up with Ashley Murickan, product marketing manager, Volvo Trucks North America, during the TMC 2022 show. Watch the video above for an overview of the service tracking feature.
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Here’s the transcript
Jason Morgan:
Hey everyone, Jason Morgan contact director for Fleet Equipment. Welcome to Fleet Equipment Unscripted. I am back at the Volvo booth. We are talking about the increased visibility that Volvo is bringing to the service process. So when a truck is down, they’re providing more visibility into that process, giving fleets and drivers a look at where the tow truck is and how soon it’s going to be there and kind of mirroring that Uber, Lyft experience that we all have when we’re trying to hitch a ride. So come on, let’s stop by the booth and get an update on the news. So what are we going to look at here? What is this?
Ashley Murickan:
So what we’re going to look at is an extension of Volvo Action Services. So do you know about Volvo Action Services?
Jason Morgan:
Yes.
Ashley Murickan:
It’s the group that sits in the Uptime Center that’s monitoring our trucks, 24/7, all the customers trucks 24/7.
Jason Morgan:
Yes. Yep.
Ashley Murickan:
They’re looking for fall codes, basically any remote diagnostic codes, they’re trying to find out if it’s a critical code, noncritical code. Regardless, they’re going to call the customer and let them know that this is happening to your truck, go to the nearest service station. Or they might say, “It’s not that critical, drop off your load and go to a service station afterward. So today I’m going to talk to you about a new feature that we introduced along with Volvo Action Service called the Service Tracker Tool.
Jason Morgan:
Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
The Service Tracker Tool is basically helping with the breakdown experience. So let’s say if your truck breaks down or unplanned stop, tire blew out, you ran out fuel, and now you got to get a tow truck and you call Volvo Action Service.
Ashley Murickan:
And Volvo Action Service will be like, “All right, I’m going to get you a tow truck, give me a moment, give me half an hour then.” And they’ll call the towing company, and they’ll get information. And then in that 30 minutes, the customers sitting there waiting for Volvo Action Service to call you back.
Jason Morgan:
Right.
Ashley Murickan:
Right. And they finally call back and then they say, “Okay, your tow truck is on the way. It would take almost an hour for your tow truck to arrive.” And then again, the customers in the dark, there’s uncertainty, right? They’re like, “Okay,” waiting. There could be traffic issues, there could be a lot of issues.
Jason Morgan:
Right.
Ashley Murickan:
So now we’ve introduced a new tool called Service Tracker Tool. It’s going to give you the Uber and Lyft like experience.
Jason Morgan:
Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
Where you call Volvo Action Service, and in two minutes, you get a text on your phone saying, “Hey, click on this link. We’ve hooked you up with a towing service.” And you click on it, and then you get the Uber, Lyft like experience where you can track where your towing…
Jason Morgan:
So bringing the visibility to the whole beginning and…
Ashley Murickan:
Exactly.
Jason Morgan:
Do I still talk with the Uptime Center?
Ashley Murickan:
You still talk initially, first time. You most probably will be talking, but there’s options to use the assist platform and…
Jason Morgan:
Right.
Ashley Murickan:
And contacting that way as well. But 95% of the people always pick up the call.
Jason Morgan:
Yeah. Because Volvo’s always been very proactive in really talking with people which has kind of been a cool trend that people have stepped away from that. But to your point, we also want visibility.
Ashley Murickan:
Right? Exactly. So we’re combining both, right. We have real people solving real issues real fast, but at the same time, we’re digitizing the experience as well.
Jason Morgan:
Okay. Cool.
Ashley Murickan:
It’s giving the visibility and transparency after the fact.
Jason Morgan:
Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
So it reduces that uncertainty from half an hour of uncertainty, you get a response in two minutes and then after that, you can track the entire towing experience so the customer knows what to expect.
Jason Morgan:
Okay. Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
And we also have a Preferred Vendor Network that we select and that Preferred Vendor Network gets first dibs on the towing experience.
Jason Morgan:
Oh, okay.
Ashley Murickan:
So if you’re on the preferred… The first two and a half minutes, Volvo Action Service will contact the Preferred Vendor, and they get to select…
Jason Morgan:
Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
The bid.
Jason Morgan:
Right. Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
And then if they don’t get it, then they go to the next Preferred Vendor.
Jason Morgan:
Okay. Interesting. But you all handle it and just kind of work me through it all?
Ashley Murickan:
Exactly.
Jason Morgan:
Okay. Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
Yeah, so… I mean, I can show you a demo of how it looks today, right? The breakdown experience, you call Volvo Action Service. Right. And they’re going to answer now it’s uncertainty, and then let’s say half an hour, Volvo Action Service is trying to get the towing company set up.
Jason Morgan:
Right.
Ashley Murickan:
And then they call you back and say that, “All right, your truck is on the way. It’s going to take about one hour.” Customer is again waiting.
Jason Morgan:
Right.
Ashley Murickan:
Right. You don’t know what’s happening. And this is where anything could go wrong. But now with the new Service Tracker App, they’re going to contact Volvo Action Service, in two minutes, you’re going to get a text message from all Volvo Action Service saying that “Click on this link.”
Jason Morgan:
Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
And you can start tracking your nearest…
Jason Morgan:
Okay.
Ashley Murickan:
Tow truck.
Jason Morgan:
Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
And you get an app interface and complete. That’s it. So…
Jason Morgan:
Oh yeah. Because you would have to have then integrated telematics on the tow truck to be able to provide that visibility.
Ashley Murickan:
Yeah.
Jason Morgan:
Right? So that’s…
Ashley Murickan:
So right now you have the app. So the app is using just like Uber and Lyft. So through the phone.
Jason Morgan:
Right. Oh, I see. And also hence the Preferred Providers that are integrated in their system’s supporting that.
Ashley Murickan:
Exactly.
Jason Morgan:
Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
So you don’t have to have…
Jason Morgan:
Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
Any hardware on your truck or anything, on the tow truck.
Jason Morgan:
Very cool. Awesome.
Ashley Murickan:
So that’s pretty much what this is all about.
Jason Morgan:
Awesome. Very cool.
Ashley Murickan:
Yeah.
Jason Morgan:
Thanks.
