With
customer satisfaction firmly at the heart of the organisation,
Vaillant, a leading UK manufacturer of gas and solid
fuel domestic heating appliance boilers, has invested
in the latest in GPRS mobile technology to enhance and
develop its service and support business even further.
UK's
leading manufacturer of gas and solid fuel domestic
heating appliance boilers and home to the famous
Glow-worm and Parkray brands
Nationwide
network of over 100 engineers with a service
centre operating 7 days a week, 364 days a year
Totally
committed to customer service
Vaillant
has two famous brands - Glow-worm and Parkray – both universally
recognised and the company also has its own national service
organisation, Heatcall, which provides after sales support
through its team of over 100 engineers.
With its own in-house technical training centre, Vaillant's
engineers all have a minimum of five years' industry experience
and are ACS qualified. All the Heatcall service vehicles
carry over 1500 genuine spare parts, enabling engineers
to complete over 95% of calls on first visits, while the
Heatcall service centre operates seven days a week, 364
days a year.
The company's commitment to providing the right
service to its customers as efficiently as possible
has seen service and support move from being a cost
centre to a key revenue centre. Service is
now an area targeted for growth and is increasingly
expected to contribute significantly to revenue.
Understanding that its excellence in customer service
was a real differentiator in the marketplace, Vaillant
knew that examining the way its engineers worked
was crucial to future success.
It was also very clear that any investment in IT
should be capable of delivering quantifiable business
benefits.
Keith Mathers, Customer Service Director at Vaillant
said:
"Under
the original system, engineers received call details
by fax and had to return call completion information
the same way, but this was a manually intensive process
and one which often led to delays. In addition, information
was often limited and we found that a large number of
calls to the help centre were actually engineers requiring
additional information to get on with their work, so
clearly we needed a much better solution."
A priority list of requirements was drawn up:
provision
of better information to improve understanding and
job planning
information
available on a self-service basis
improved
supply of information from engineers. Existing delays
in collecting stock and billing information caused
planning issues and increased levels of customer
queries
improved
information about engineer activity to keep customers
better informed, with faster call outs and reduced
follow-up visits
With
the needs of the engineers established, the next step
was to set three overall distinct business goals:
to
improve customer responsiveness
improve
engineer efficiency
improve
quality and timeliness of information
By
using GPRS ‘always on’ technology, engineers not only
have direct access to real-time information but the
system has given them greater responsibility for their
day-to-day activity, the ability to take ownership for
their work and become more independent.
Mr Mathers said: "It has allowed them more time
to focus on providing the customer service excellence
which is so important to us, but at the same time improved
efficiency and control of resources and stock. "Although the project was only recently implemented,
we are already seeing benefits in efficiency which demonstrate
that the investment was a major step forward towards
our goal of continual improvement." Because information is now inputted into the system
directly by the engineers, potential data entry problems
are reduced, while at the same time it means call controllers
can provide more accurate and faster responses to customer
enquiries.
In addition, it enables engineers to communicate with
each other and with their office, reducing administration
overheads by enabling work to be organised more efficiently
and improving the engineer support network.
Simplicity of systems has kept training costs down and
the engineers' hand-held devices are easy to manage.
A
number of more traditional options were examined,
but it was Interchange Group's e-business approach,
involving a web application with direct access
for engineers to the call system, which proved
the right solution.
"Automating the communications to our field
service engineers was key to what we needed
to achieve," said Mr Mathers. "Using
a feasibility study, Interchange was able to
demonstrate the viability of an e-business approach
and this also highlighted a number of issues
that we needed to carefully consider during
the design and build process."
Once the project was given the green light,
Vaillant split it into two areas:- development
of the engineer portal and creation of the required
infrastructure.
The first step was to create a sophisticated
web application, integrated with the existing
Interchange solution at the heart of Vaillant's
service operation, and which could be used by
engineers from all over the country.
Key functionality included access for engineers
to real time call information and the ability
to manage the calls directly from updates through
to completion. It needed to allow them to perform
detailed call planning using their local knowledge,
actively manage stock and associated deliveries,
improve their own communications and report
associated banking activities.
Meanwhile, the Interchange and Vaillant teams
worked closely together to create the infrastructure
needed to host the web application as well as
select the associated range of equipment and
services required.
This involved commissioning a web hosting machine,
configuring internal communications and security,
finding an ISP and planning and testing suitable
communications tools.
With all this work in place, a programme was
put together to ensure effective and efficient
implementation.
Interchange recommended, supplied and configured
a web server using Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
secure communication technologies to meet Vaillant's
functionality and security requirements, while
Vaillant ensured that its internal communications
were in place to support the link to the existing
Interchange system.
This included the supply and configuration of
120 Bluetooth enabled PDA's, for Vaillant's
field service engineers, each configured to
work with their GPRS mobile phones and support
access to the e-business application via landline
and mobile communications
Interchange also worked very closely with Vaillant
in the development of software which would address
the key needs of the business. The application
needed to be fully featured, yet as lean and
efficient as possible to make mobile operation
a viable option.
The design was translated to a working system
using common web tools and underwent exhaustive
testing and field trials by a selected set of
engineers.
The simplicity of the application meant training
sessions could be held locally to minimise disruption
for the engineers' daily routines and Vaillant
prepared detailed training materials for its
employees.
The
Future Looking ahead, Mr Mathers continued: "We
are determined that our investment in e-business
will enable us to stay ahead of the competition
and we are very excited about two major initiatives
now in the pipeline which will enable this to
happen."
The first of these is the creation of new avenues
of communication through the introduction of web-based
self-service for both consumer and trade customers.
The second will be the valuation of the enhanced
business information which is now available, enabling
it to be used to identify possibilities for improving
processes and targeting future business opportunities.
Having
completed a phased introduction as part of a low
impact rollout, all of the company's engineers
are now using the new hand held devices. Initial
evidence so far suggests that processes are already
much more efficient, but formal review and benchmarking
against objectives will take place over the forthcoming
months.
Copyright
2001 - 2008 Interchange Group Limited - All Rights Reserved
Copyright
2001 - 2008 Interchange Group Limited - All Rights Reserved
