A growing emphasis in society is being placed on customer service, with the logistics sector the cornerstone of change that is affecting all facets of modern life.
With the broad acceptance of eCommerce and adoption of mobile technology, consumers want their online purchases delivered quickly, cheaply, and with live-time status updates.
In Australia, the arrival of international goliaths such as Amazon, is placing new demands on the supply chain, which must adapt to keep pace with expectations.
The local truck sales market represents one of the busiest on the planet, with many companies looking to service the needs a relatively small population of 24 million.
While extensive planning is undertaken to ensure their product range meets the requirements of the changing market, truck manufacturers seeking to stand out from the crowd are placing more emphasis on improving customer service experience.
This means across the working life of the vehicle, service should be of the highest level, explains Bill Gillespie, Hino Australia’s General Manager of Brand and Franchise Development.
Recent surveys commissioned by respected customer satisfaction analysts Canstar Blue, revealed that across various industries, including automotive, hardware, and electronics to name a few, consumers are increasingly expecting the best possible service, not just at the time of transacting but ongoing. With many consumers identifying after sale service as a vital consideration in their overall satisfaction and purchasing decision.
“We have truck specification advantages right now, and we also have the ability to offer key business solutions,” said Mr Gillespie.
“We offer what we think is a terrific product, but buyers are asking for and expecting a lot more than just a great product.
“Product is obviously still king in this market, but if you don’t have the service to back it up, we know you can lose a piece of business because you’re not offering a total customer package, or in our world, the Hino Advantage.”
Grown from investigations into the expectations of customers, Hino Advantage provides a range of support solutions to deliver a comprehensive customer care program.
Over the last ten years the car industry in Australia has undergone a complete overhaul in relation to how customers are treated – from the greetings in the showroom, to the ease of organising your vehicle to be serviced and fixed service prices. There is no doubt it is much more consumer friendly than it has ever been and those who do it well reap the rewards with high customer satisfaction levels.
For Hino, it was apparent, that using the learnings from the car industry would form the basis for building the most beneficial customer offering.
“We looked at what we were offering, compared to the car market and it was evident that we had gaps, and we were going to have a widening gap over the next five to ten years if we didn’t start to look at how we could close some of that down,” said Mr Gillespie.
“We researched some concepts like 24/7 roadside service, afterhours servicing, express servicing and capped priced servicing.
“They were the after-purchase tests to see what customers were looking for, and it was pretty obvious that there was positive feedback on many of those areas.
“We started to map out that plan for the next five years on how to close down some of those gaps.
“So, Hino Advantage evolved and we have subsequently grouped the complete range of Hino benefits under that banner.”
The Hino Advantage suite of services includes capped price servicing, dedicated customer care centre, access to Hino Genuine parts and accessories, factory-trained service technicians, roadside assistance, Hino Telematics, tailored fleet training and Hino Financial Services.
A positive for Hino derived from being a part of the Global Group of Companies, is that lessons can be taken from one of the world’s most customer focussed automotive companies and seamlessly transfer to the transport industry.
“Because we are in the Toyota Group, we talk to Toyota, Toyota Financial Services, Toyota Fleet, Lexus and Toyota Material Handling, which is a particularly rich source of insight for us. Arguably they are talking to similar customers.” said Mr Gillespie.
With the marketplace continuing to evolve, new facets of the consumer experience will continue to become available and Hino acknowledges this and will continue to adapt.
“We recently added Hino Telematics over the last 18 months, which is still in its formative period. Over the next five years it will gain a lot more traction as we will start to develop this product even more to support our customer needs and their business,” said Mr Gillespie.
“Hino Advantage as a total offering will never be fully developed, it will always be under review, it will always be changing, because customer and owner needs are going to keep changing.
“The consumer experience is changing in every part of the commercial world, and people’s expectations are aligned around that.
“They will continue take those expectations across and apply them into their truck or capital equipment buying experience,” concluded Mr Gillespie.