Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA), represented by Freightliner Trucks, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, Detroit™ and Freightliner Custom Chassis, concluded its biennial aftermarket conference, “Evolution.” The conference, which is focused on evolving to continue to meet customer needs and expectations, is the third aftermarket conference hosted by DTNA and the only conference of its kind that includes all brands within the company’s umbrella.
The conference opened with Martin Daum, DTNA president and CEO, who asked the network to take a step back and look for ways to continually improve in order to better meet customer expectations. His directives were clear: act as one team, lead with awesome DTNA products and provide a “wow” experience to customers.
“We will move into the future with a continued investment in our products, facilities and IT solutions,” Daum said. “We have already seen improvements in the network this past year. We have enhanced parts availability, productivity, efficiency and competitive parts pricing and we will continue to make significant strides in the coming years.”
A large portion of the conference focused on listening to the dealers, distributors and suppliers who interact with customers every day. Friedrich Baumann, DTNA senior vice president of aftermarket, led part of these discussions on how customer expectations are evolving and how to better meet those needs.
“Our customer needs are evolving,” said Baumann. “We wanted to use this conference as a platform to support a continued conversation on the evolution of customer service in our industry. To support our market leadership position, it takes a combined effort among our brands, our network and suppliers to raise the bar on customer service in the industry.”
Baumann was joined by a dealer and distributor panel onstage who shared their individual experiences with evolving customer expectations.
“Customer expectations are really evolving at a rapid pace,” said Dan Stevens, vice chair of the Freightliner dealer network. “Companies like Apple and Amazon are raising the bar for customer service, and customers will continue to hold us accountable for that level of service and support. Luckily, we are doing a lot of things right. Through Elite Support, we provide a clean, clutter-free, safe place for our customers to do business while we work to get their truck turned around as quickly as possible. Through Express Assessment, we give customers the information they need to make a business decision in the shortest amount of time. We have all of the tools to provide exceptional customer service. What sets us apart is our continuous improvement process. The fact that we make incremental improvements in the things that we do every day is the key to our success.”
Following the conference, dealers, suppliers and distributors were charged with working together to better the DTNA customer experience. Moving forward, there will be a number of improvements across the network that will significantly impact the level of service and support that DTNA customers will experience.
DTNA will raise the bar on service and continue to focus on getting parts to customers as quickly as possible in order to achieve maximum uptime.
Through DTNA’s robust service network, all service locations and customer touchpoints within the organization will partner together in order to provide a consistent best-in-class customer service experience.
“It’s important to note that customer service is not a finish line,” continued Baumann. “As an organization, we are dedicated to continuous improvement that will continue to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Our customers come first and foremost, so we will place a great deal of emphasis on meeting those needs now and well into the future.”
To learn more about Daimler Trucks North America and its network, visit Daimler-trucksnorthamerica.com. You can also view photos of the event here.
