Road Assist

One time I was stuck on 494 in Minneapolis waiiting for brkdown over 5 hrs.Called sent many and many QUALCOMM messages.Finally brk down called very apologetic and told me someone is on his way to me.I was like 3 hrs over my on my hos and logs did not give me a warning because they knew this was not my fault.

 

I'm just tired of all the USE the qualcomm, use the qualcomm and they still don't respond, Last time when I had a trailer flat, I called the main number and asked to speak to the Reefer supervisor, Things started happening then

 

Take your RA advisor to school. When I had troubles with response times, I started mentioning the response times in my QC messages, had a nice talk with Justin Kaufman when I hit Sprimo and things started to change. Sometimes you have to wag the dog...

 

Prime needs to expand the road assist department mainly the weekend guys. I don't believe any of my road assist guys ignore my messages just to go eat lunch. But they do have to decide who needs the most help and start there , getting a service done is going to be under the desk rather than on top of the list. I don't know the actual number of guys in the office on the weekend but I'll take a guess it is 10 or less meaning they are spread pretty thin taking care of thousands of trucks

 

There's just a few guys on nights/weekends.

The deal on USE THE QUALCOMM is that they only have a limited number of lines, and to get service arranged they HAVE to use the phone to talk to shops, road maintenance, tows, etc. If you guys are calling as well, the busy signal that the shop gets when they call RA back might just be the guy that's supposed to be responding to YOU delaying when you'll get fixed. Yup it takes awhile, and sometimes its because they are dealing with a downright emergency. Arranging your PM probably takes a backseat in the priority department at that sort of moment.

And I agree... dealing with them is totally frustrating.

So... here's the ironpony solution... whenever possible, I figure out the closest purveyor of maintenance, tires, etc - and I QUALCOMM a suggested course of action to RA to solve my problem, and ask them if they agree. Usually get's pretty quick turnaround, and they're happy to not have to deal with it any further other than approving charges. Been doing this for some time now, including when I was on the company side.

 

^^^^ Yep. ^^^^

I usually send them the what, where, when on QC....... as soon as possible.
They reply with a yea or nea. If nea, another course of action is recommended.
Usually works out pretty well this way.

I QC them when I arrive and a reference # usually comes pretty quick, saving both them and servicer some calls & waits.

Can't say that I HAVEN'T had that frustrating moment before. Trust me, I have. But, it's going to happen with the thousands of trucks we have out there. Never know what they may be dealing with at any given moment.

Have gained quite a bit of experience dealing with them, as ya'll know my second home has been one service place or another this past year. (Or, has it been my first home? Gonna have to think about that one.)

 

Its not that they are ignoring you... its just your priority level ain't as high to them as it is to you. LOL!