Integrated mobile asset management helps construction equipment dealer raise service sale opportunities, decrease PM life cycle, and recover warranty costs
Incorporating more technology as your field service business grows makes sense. And the benefits are clear: Maturing your field services with connected technology, including mobile asset management, can help streamline your processes, eliminate unnecessary manual tasks, and boost customer satisfaction.
Increased use of connected technology is especially helpful for asset-intensive field service businesses, such as fire protection, HVAC, and industrial equipment dealers. Without comprehensive data on customer assets in the field, service businesses are very likely losing out on significant service revenue opportunities.
What does the transformation to the highest service maturity level look like? And once they get there, what kind of results can a service company achieve?
Here’s a peek into just one such company.
Asset management maturity in practice with Waukesha-Pearce Industries
Let’s look into a company that has taken their service technology to the highest maturity level.
A leader in the construction equipment industry, Waukesha-Pearce Industries (WPI) partners with world-class manufacturers, such as Komatsu, Gradall, Bomag, and more, to provide equipment and service solutions.
When WPI began their field service maturity journey, they were basically building their integrated technology solution from the ground up.
As David Palmer, WPI’s Senior CMD Project Manager says, “We actually started at level zero about two years ago, so it’s been a great ride all the way up to level 4. It has been a great culture change throughout the last couple years and everything has gone really smooth.”
Significantly higher average service sale opportunity
One of the benefits WPI has realized is increased average sale opportunities on quotes they’re providing to customers.
“One of the things we’ve struggled with in the past is, yes, you can find something wrong [on a piece of equipment],” says David. “But if the customer’s not there, then the salesman has to call.”
Now that they’re using Service Pro Mobile paired with Service Pro Customer Experience, WPI’s field technicians are better able to inform customers of equipment issues right away while the technicians are on site. This proactive approach helps WPI capture more service revenue.
“We’re actually keeping customers engaged throughout the whole repair process, whether it be through emails or text messaging,” David says. “What this does for us is when we get onto a site, we’re actually able to give a broad overview of the whole machine. We’re able to tell that customer while we’re on site, ‘Hey, we found another issue.’”
“This information is going directly to the customer right away, and we’re actually seeing an increase of about $1200 per estimate based on the inspections and the communication that we’re having.”
Shorter PM life cycle
Preventive maintenance (PM) can be a big driver of service revenue, if done correctly. But relying on disconnected systems to know when customer assets are due for maintenance can delay service and make for a longer PM life cycle.
“We were able to utilize the technology to start pulling in data in regards to when things were due for service,” says David. “If you were doing that off a spreadsheet, you were always missing something. You didn’t always see the big picture. You weren’t able to dispatch your technicians exactly where they needed to go and when they needed to go.”
David continues, “We’ve actually seen a 40% decrease in the whole PM lifecycle from when we actually know when the machine is due for service all the way down to when we actually collect our money from the manufacturer or the customer themselves.”
“It’s been a great increase in this area and we’ve been really, really happy with it,” David says.
Seven-figure warranty recovery
Warranty write-offs can be a big pain for equipment dealers. As David says, “Manufacturers put such a strain on dealers and businesses today that they require this information, that information, they change their requirements all the time.”
To keep up with changing manufacturer warranty requirements, WPI needed a streamlined way to collect data from their field technicians, without having to shuffle through stacks of paperwork.
“What people don’t realize is that most of your warranty write-offs is because of lack of information,” David explains. “It’s not the lack of actually performing the work. It’s the lack of gathering the information from the technician.”
Gathering asset information on Service Pro Mobile makes it easy to collect required information for warranty claims consistently.
David says, “By utilizing the service reports and the inspections inside of Service Pro, we can tell the technician, ‘This is the brand of machine you’re working on, and you’re going to work on a hydraulic system. These are the requirements for warranty. Please gather this information.’”
“By getting the proper information funneled in, we’re recovering our money a lot faster,” says David. “And we’re recovering almost 100% of our warranty claims moving forward.”
Start your service maturity journey with Service Pro
This is just one example of the great benefits that can be realized with connected service maturity and a greater focus on mobile asset management.
To start your journey, watch this video featuring WPI’s David Palmer and MSI’s Vice President of Product Management, Dave Charland.
