As of March, the spread of the COVID-19 started to impact all industries across Europe. Some Industries had to accelerate production to address a sudden spike in demand, other industries went to low supply levels as they saw market demand drop significantly as companies lowered their activity to limit the further spread of the virus.
Goodyear Refines Goodyear Total Mobility Offer to Meet New Challenges
Grégory Boucharlat, Goodyear Vice President Commercial Europe said, “Servicing different industries, fleet managers had to change their daily operations on a very short period of time. Depending on the core activity of the fleet, we saw very quickly two opposing forces developing across the fleet landscape.
“We see a number of our large fleet customers running overtime to deliver essential goods such as food, medical and chemical supplies and for them uptime and the availability of drivers are even more critical than before. On the other hand, fleets being a critical part in the supply chain of automotive or industrial materials have a large number of vehicles parked on their yard because of factory closures.”
In this fluid environment, transport and logistics companies as well as their suppliers are faced with new challenges and opportunities. To support the evolving needs of its customers during these challenging times, Goodyear is customising its end-to-end fleet offer, Goodyear Total Mobility, even further with a new voluntary service pack.
To relieve some of the workload of very busy fleet managers these days, a dedicated proactive service team has been assigned to manage tyre alerts on their behalf. Whenever a vehicle in the field equipped with the Goodyear Tyre Pressure Monitoring System sends a fast leak, temperature or low tyre pressure signal, the service team swiftly analyses the situation and fixes potential tyre issues before they even happen.
Based on the extensive data systems managed by Goodyear, the team has a full view on the alert history, has the expertise to evaluate the degree of the current issue and is able to locate the vehicle. In case assistance is needed, a nearby service provider will assist the driver to solve the issue as soon as possible. To guarantee swift assistance response times, the tyre manufacturer is monitoring daily the availability of its ServiceLine24H technicians to make sure operational customers can get the support they need across Europe, 24H a day, seven days a week. To close the loop, the fleet manager will be informed the truck is up and running again up to the next delivery.
Uptime is particularly important in difficult times. Transport companies must be able to rely on their vehicles and their partners to keep moving essential goods from A to B. Despite the operational limitations given the confinement measures, Goodyear managed to continue to service its fleet customers for emergencies with the help of the TruckForce network across Europe.
In Germany, F. + H. Dreikluft Reifenhandel GmbH in Eppingen is one of the more than 2000 Pan-European TruckForce service providers and stands out for its customer excellence.
“We literally drive the extra mile to support truck drivers in these challenging times. Our mobile units operate day and night, 7days a week to assist fleets delivering essential goods. ” says Gerhard Dreikluft, owner and manager.
“Recently, we had one particular case where we drove 240 km return to assist a breakdown of a low aspect ratio drive tyre on a loaded truck. The call came in via the Goodyear Serviceline 24h at 9:44 pm. A Goodyear KMAX D GEN-2 size 315/45 R 22.5 was in stock and our technician immediately hit the road to assist the truck, 120 km away. Shortly after midnight the truck was up and running again up to its next delivery and satisfied customer.”
For customers that had to temporarily limit or halt their fleet activity Goodyear is providing practical tools to conduct fleet checks as well as recommendations to drivers on how to check the tyres of their vehicle before starting operations.
“The fact of having a large number of trucks and trailers parked for several weeks, leaves room for extensive vehicle and material checks, conduct preventive maintenance activities and install new equipment by the client”. continues Boucharlat.
“As an effect, we also saw an increased demand and interest by customers to install Goodyear Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems during this period as fleets see more and more the added value of preventive tyre maintenance”.
