Scania Assistance goes local

In a move designed to offer even better support for its local customers and drivers, Scania Australia has cut the ribbon on a new locally based subsidiary of Scania Assistance.

While already providing breakdown backup for owners of Scania trucks, buses and power solutions in Australia and New Zealand for many years, the new venture will see Antipodean customers connected to a locally based team of Scania Assistance experts. Previously calls to the Scania Assistance 1800 free-call number were directed to a centre based in the UK.

Scania Assistance provides around-the-clock advice and expertise to Scania customers, providing detailed information to troubleshoot problems and help get Scania products back up and running.

Now that help will come direct from a Melbourne-based team of five Scania specialists, who can help out drivers and operators who find themselves stuck, anywhere across Australia and New Zealand.

“Scania Assistance stands ready to help any Scania owner or driver who has had a vehicle breakdown, for example a flat battery, or a warning light or message that instructs the vehicle to be stopped safely,” says Brendon Parry, Scania Assistance supervisor for Australia and New Zealand.

“We then contact a Scania branch or Scania authorised independent dealer who can provide help at the side of the road using their roadside assistance van and technician.

“We are the interface between a distressed customer or driver at the roadside and the technician dispatched to analyse and hopefully fix the problem in situ. We provide the customer with one point of contact throughout the process, and keep them informed as we are updated by the technician at the roadside, or via the data he is providing using the Scania OnScene app.

“In some cases where a vehicle is stranded in a remote location, using the Scania Communicator we can pinpoint the vehicle’s location, sending the technician the exact coordinates, which again reduces downtime. In most cases, the truck can be fixed at the roadside.”

Mr Parry says the establishment of a local Scania Assistance centre will bring major benefits to local Scania customers.

“Now with the establishment of the local Australian centre, we will have more local knowledge and more local options for helping customers in need,” he says.

“Over the past decade Scania in Australia and New Zealand has been delivering record numbers of trucks, which will create greater demand for assistance services. Trucks, buses and marine and industrial engines are mechanical devices and sometimes they break down. Despite our laser-like focus on uptime and scheduled servicing, our vehicle operators accept there may be unplanned stoppages and what they are interested in is how quickly we can get them rolling again.

“Our focus has always been on uptime and ensuring the delivery gets through.”

The new centre will also benefit from a new generation system that allows Scania to access more data, thereby better matching the customer to the vehicle. It all helps speed up the resolution of any issue, says Scania Assistance project manager, Andrew Greenwood, who is based in the UK.

“In the future we anticipate the customer will be able to report a fault or breakdown using the Scania Driver app, and obviously that will bring a lot more stable data into play and make it easier for the nominated technician to see the exact details of the vehicle as well as potentially its service history and the fault codes generated,” Andrew says.

“Further down the track we may be able to use live data from trucks to predict when breakdowns might occur and be able to avoid unplanned mid-journey roadside stops.”

The new Scania Assistance centre is based in Scania Australia’s national warehouse facility in Campbellfield, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The brand boasts nine Scania-owned workshops in Australia along with a nationwide network of over 60 independent authorised dealers.

“The message is simply that if you drive a Scania you’re never alone,” says Mr Parry. “Scania Assistance is just a phone call away.”