Aftermarket parts and service are the lucrative ‘long tail’ of revenue for the heavy equipment industry, delivering over half of revenue and eighty percent of profit, on average.In a series of features across the next few weeks run in partnership with Trimble, we will be taking a look at six key areas to focus on in order to maximise parts and service revenue and profits.

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Studies have consistently shown that parts and services in the aftermarket deliver longer term, and often more profitable revenue than the sale of original equipment that precedes them. This is particularly true for industries such as construction, mining, and agriculture.

A new equipment sale can result in years or decades of maintenance and replacement parts business for the dealer, driven by heavy wear parts, service and maintenance contracts and component replacements or rebuilds.

Whether it’s emergency field repair, preventive maintenance, inspections or shop work, companies that invest in streamlining their processes and implement dedicated service workflow solutions are in the best position to capture aftermarket value. Having a service management system that easily integrates equipment and customer information into the service workflows is key to achieving results.

In this series, we will discuss six key areas where Trimble PULSE® functionality and integrations with other systems can help organisations improve field service efficiency, streamline back office processes, increase billable hours, and provide a positive service experience to their customers.

#1Deliver Faster Service Response Times and More Accurate Service Windows

The customer experience matters more than you think when it comes to predicting future equipment sales revenue. Many companies now value service at nearly the same level as equipment price when choosing their equipment vendor. Service response time is widely recognized within the industry as having a direct relationship to customer satisfaction, retention and profitability.

With Trimble PULSE, service providers can quickly react to service requests and triggers, by easily accessing customer and equipment information through a single interface. This includes asset location and service meter hours or mileage, as well as service history, customer contact details, and site information. Customer and equipment information is kept synchronized and up to date through Trimble PULSE integrations with telematics data feeds from the equipment being serviced, and through integrations to dealer business systems such as the Microsoft Dynamics NAXTTM solution from XAPT, Caterpillar DBS from FDC Solutions, and many others.

A key component of service response time is the estimated time of arrival (ETA), which helps ensure that customers are prepared for the arrival of a technician and any disruption to their operations is minimized. With Trimble PULSE, companies can easily create work orders from call information and efficiently schedule and dispatch technicians to the field, taking into account equipment and technician locations and routing needs to predict service windows and arrival times. Being able to respond quickly to service requests, and communicate accurate ETA windows, means that customer equipment will be down for the minimum amount of time and customers will be kept informed throughout the service planning and delivery process.

#2 Fix it Right on the First Visit

Getting it right the first time is key for customer satisfaction. A common customer complaint is when a technician does not resolve an issue the first time. This may be due to not having the right parts or tools, not having the right skills, or not having enough time to complete the job.

First-time fix rates can be boosted significantly if the entire service workflow is seamlessly connected. Providing service advisors, schedulers, and technicians with advance information about the problem, and equipping technicians with mobile technology, are key steps in the right direction. With adequate planning and the right information at their fingertips, technicians can do their jobs more efficiently, resulting in an enhanced customer experience. With Trimble PULSE, work orders are easily created from service calls, bringing across pre-visit information including equipment hours, call details, service history, and site notes.

Technicians can access all relevant work order information on their mobile app to prepare for the service, and determine availability of parts required for the job prior to traveling to the customer site. Trimble PULSE provides service schedulers with the ability to assign work orders based on technician skill set, location, and availability. Intelligent advising capabilities help a service department ensure the best technician is matched to each job while minimizing impact on schedules and customer commitments.

By matching the technicians with the jobs they are best equipped for, Trimble PULSE helps service departments increase the first time fix rate for their field teams.

In the next feature in this series we will explore how field service companies can increase field team capacity for billable time and reduce administrative workload and non billable hours.

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