In the latest edition of Dave Ward’s blog, the N&W MD and Chair of the AVA turns his attention to training.
Hello again.
So, picture this: what would you do?
You got the car of your dreams 10,000 miles ago. Lets say, a Porsche 911 GT3RS. Now, it’s time for a service. You book in your pride and joy at the local franchise garage; where you happen to find out that the engineer who’ll be responsible for your vehicle’s maintenance has never actually seen under the bonnet of the 911 GT3RS (pictured above), before. Or, in fact, of any Porsche… Oops.
You’d be astonished, wouldn’t you? I would. I’d be incredulous, in fact. It might even put me off Porsche* for life.
I’m confident that at N&W I have the best technical team in the business: the problem is that half of the enquiries they deal with on a daily basis could – should, in fact – be handled by the engineer on site, without any need to trouble the ‘tech desk’. Why? Because basic technical training would have enabled that engineer to diagnose the problem at source and act accordingly. We’ve also provided problem solving tools for reference, but the chances are that this particular engineer doesn’t know that, either.
It could, and should have been a first time fix. It wasn’t.
Training your engineers will save you money. What costs more? Having your chap on the phone to our technical desk for two hours, four or five times a year, then making 6 or 8 site visits when 2 or 3 would easily have done – or a day at our Technical Training Centre in Bilston?
‘Simples’, as that annoying marketing meerkat would say.
Your customers will think you’re the best vending company in the world if your engineer is in and out in half an hour and the machine is back in business. On the other hand, if the machine is out of commission for hours or (God forbid) days on end and customers are grumbling…
If your field engineers have done the training, they’ll save you money. They may even save you accounts that might, otherwise, be in jeopardy…
So, here’s my bug-bear: we can have the best tech team in the world and the best spares team in the world, but if the bloke in front of the machine (and the customer!) doesn’t know what he’s doing, we’re all up a certain creek with no means of propulsion… He’s the one who has to describe the problem to our engineer (who can’t see it). If his description isn’t right, our expert is reduced to guesswork and intuition. You might end up with the wrong part… And don’t get me started on how often the caller doesn’t understand the advice that’s been given!
As for ‘saving money’, if training could cut your fix times by 10, 15 or even 20 percent, what would that be worth?
Technical training is not ‘like to have’. These days, when competition is so hot, it’s ‘absolutely must have’. Otherwise, there’s a danger that all of us will end up with egg on our faces…
NB: The AVA is now running an electrical course. Led by Tutor Phil Watts of Ascot College of Electrical Studies, participants are schooled in the basics of electrical vending in both theory and practice. More information is here on Planet Vending.
* Other prestige marques are also available. Apparently.
Bye for now
Dave Ward.
