Before the fleetHQ Solution Center began handling Donald B. Rice Tire Co.’s after-hour calls, the tire dealer’s customers may have had better luck reaching a medical or law office than getting the right tire for their trucks. 
“Our after-hour calls were being answered by a local answering service that also works for doctors and lawyers,” said Chris Chase, executive vice president of D.B. Rice.
Rolling after-hour calls to the emergency roadside tire assistance call center available through Goodyear’s fleetHQ resulted in an additional $22,500 per month in revenue for D.B. Rice and improved call response for its customers, Chase said. The tire dealer operates nine commercial locations in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
The answering service’s operators just didn’t have the knowledge or the expertise to handle tire calls and get the correct information, he added. When drivers responded to calls, too often they had to go back to the tire center to get the right tires because the answering service didn’t get the right tire size or the right position.
Chase said the additional revenue is a direct result of increased call response with 50 additional service calls per month being answered.
“Because the fleetHQ representatives get the right information, our drivers are able to respond to more calls each week because they have the right tires when they respond,” he added. “Since we switched over late last year, our decline rate has gone down from 53% to 28%.”
Purcell Tire & Rubber Co. say its decline rates have also plummeted, which has led to a $100,000 a month bump in revenue. Paul Long, national director of commercial sales for Purcell Tire, said rolling after-hour calls at 11 of its 60 locations to fleetHQ starting in November 2008 was an eye-opening experience. After-hour calls at Purcell locations are ordinarily routed to the on-duty driver.
“After the change to fleetHQ, we were able to see that our decline rate was about 51%,” Long said. “There were a number of reasons for that high decline rate – sometimes our drivers were on another call or they traveled outside the range of their cell phones. But we also found instances when our drivers should have been available, but weren’t. With that information, we began holding our drivers accountable for after-hour calls so that we could avoid leaving money and service calls on the table whenever possible.”
It’s worked, and as Long has expanded with fleetHQ – currently 21 Purcell locations use fleetHQ with more on the way – the rejection rate for a service call is now at 28 percent. “We receive about 85 service calls per week for those 21 locations and respond to 63 of them,” Long said. “At an average of $450 per service call in revenue, those 63 calls per week generate more than $100,000 per month in revenue.”
Long said it’s understandable that dealers can be wary of having someone else talk to their customers. Moving after-hour calls to the fleetHQ Solution Center can be “a leap of faith.” But it’s one that dealers should seriously consider because the fleetHQ Solution Center does such a good job of responding and handling calls.
Chase of D.B. Rice agrees with Long. He said the call recording feature available with fleetHQ Solution Center has helped his dealership settle potential disputes with customers.
“We had a customer whose driver was repeatedly complaining about our night service,” Chase said. “He said our service drivers were rude and unprofessional.”
When D.B. Rice set up a meeting with the driver and his boss and played back the recording of the latest call, it was clear that the D.B. Rice representative had been very professional and courteous.
“We have not had another complaint from them,” Chase added. “The recordings are a great tool.”
