Inaugurated 18 months ago, the Scania Assistance Centre is a £1m monument to customer service. Housed in ultra-modern premises and bristling with the very latest technology, the Centre happens to be in Bradford – although, in practice, its geographic location is largely irrelevant as each of its Advisors have access to some of the most sophisticated mapping and computer systems available to assist operators no matter where they may be.

CUSTOMER SERVICE
"Our focus is totally on providing second-to-none customer service," says the Centre's Manager, Laurence Medina.  "And what really matters is the dedicated customer service team and the systems we have in place which enable us to deal with calls in the most timely and efficient manner possible."  

Laurence, (a 'she' by the way; her name is French), joined the Scania Assistance team after several years handling service calls for Scania in France and Belgium. "The idea of focusing the Scania Assistance service as a head office function came back in 1996," she explains. "Before that, the Scania network had 30 years of experience in providing this service. The aim was to bring the individual markets together to deliver a higher quality, more responsive service through the introduction of a co-ordinated system with better communication between countries. We also wanted to reduce our dependence on third-party service providers so we could have Scania people taking care of Scania customers."

Ultimately, a regional solution was adopted: "Today, we have four areas covering Europe – North, South, East and West – with the Scania head office in Sweden maintaining overall management and control," says Laurence. "But once again, from the customer's point-of-view, the regionalisation is irrelevant. All anyone has to do is call us – no matter where they happen to be in Europe – and we'll take care of the rest for them. 

"Our objective is to get vehicles back on the road in the shortest possible time. To achieve that we frequently need to be able to access and share information with our colleagues, and that is where our behind-the-scenes systems and channels of communication come into play.

"Essentially, we have created a central database which contains full details of the vast majority of Scania customers and vehicles operating throughout Europe today. All we have to do is enter the registration number and the information appears on the screen before us. As well as chassis details, the system keeps a record of guarantee-of-payment details and the customer's local dealer. With that information in hand, we can concentrate on identifying the problem and getting help on the way.

"Here, the key is to read the symptoms. Some problems are obvious, but others can be more difficult. All our Advisors have on-going technical training, but within our team we also have several ex-Technicians who can often provide additional technical expertise.