At last week's Annual Technology & Maintenance Council meeting in Nashville, TN, North America's largest truck repair and maintenance network, WheelTime Network, announced the launch of WheelTime LINQ. This is its new nationwide customer service platform that links systems, processes and services to reduce downtime and increase uptime.
This new customer service platform will connect all 200 WheelTime network locations to each other and to customers. It is designed to be the backbone to WheelTime's delivery of transparent, consistent and seamless customer service.
The "game-changing" platform integrates core systems with standardized processes, using technology and telematics, to take customer service to new levels of speed, quality and efficiency, while eliminating issues that have plagued the maintenance field for decades, said Mike Delaney, president and CEO of WheelTime.
Partnered with Decisiv
WheelTime partnered with Decisiv, the leading provider of service relationship management, to build the WheelTime LINQ customer service platform.
LINQ incorporates a number of important service elements into a single, connected and effective system, Delaney said. It assures consistent quotes, consistent service and a consistent way of doing business.
It allows a vehicle history to follow the vehicle wherever it goes, assures that invoices match quotes and that time stamped, dated communications back up warranty claims and disputes, he added. It also ensures that labor times for the same jobs don't vary from one location to another, and it makes it easy for the service location to do things exactly the way that a customer wants, every time, and everywhere.
WheelTime Signature
WheelTime LINQ supports WheelTime Signature, a network-wide "estimate to invoice" consolidated billing and reconciliation program.
Developed in partnership with Multi Service Corporation - a global transaction management company specializing in billing and payment systems, the program is the first in the industry to leverage Decisiv's best in class repair order estimating capabilities in combination with Multi Service's industry-leading billing and payments expertise, noted Delaney. The integration allows WheelTime to minimize billing errors and disputes by ensuring that each approved estimate matches the final billed invoice for both parts and labor.
Additionally, it offers features like a dedicated credit line and online account access to maximize productivity and decrease costs for fleets of all sizes.
"As the ultimate customer service platform, WheelTime LINQ is unique because it focuses on managing the whole transaction, not just the repair," he said. "It saves time at the front end by incorporating customer designed elements into every quote or repair process.
"It saves time at the back end by eliminating disputes and reconciliations. It saves time in the middle by accelerating communications and approvals."
Best practices
Investing in best practices is in the DNA at WheelTime, according to Delaney. Since 2004, members have spent more than $11 million developing standards and metrics for network-wide performance.
They also have continued to investigate new ways to measure and perform service, collecting quality metrics on over 1.4 million repair orders and over 50,000 customer interviews to better understand how to make service better, he said.
Beginning in 2009, WheelTime began studying time-at-location to see where it could cut out hours or days of downtime. In aggregate, the Network discovered that roughly 84 percent of the time a vehicle was in their shops was not wrench time.
Only 16 percent of the time was actually spent fixing the truck, pointed out Delaney. The rest was what the Network called "white space" - time getting approvals, communicating or miss-communicating. Overall, it was administrative work that customers did not want to pay for and that could be eliminated if the Network invested in systems to change the way business was done.
"Today, we are implementing new systems to speed check in, enhance customer communications, streamline quotes and enhance service consistency at every location in the network," he said. "Our overall goal remains, as the name WheelTime implies, to reduce time in the shop and create more time at the wheel for every customer.
"We are primed to revolutionize the vehicle maintenance industry. "We are thrilled to be partnering with Multi Service and Decisiv to launch WheelTime LINQ and take the concept of customer service to the next level."
More information can be found at visit www.WheelTime.com
