Hino launches unique service and maintenance plans

Pieter, you’ve said that the new plans are comprehensive, price-competitive, and cost-effective. Please explain further?

They are comprehensive because the service and maintenance (S&M) plans are available to all Hino trucks in the different types of applications in the industry. We believe that they are price competitive because the prices on these plans have been benchmarked against competitor vehicles in each category (we compared apples with apples). We even went so far as to ask Hino Motors Limited in Japan to reduce prices on parts that were out of line. We have also localised some parts to improve their prices. We believe that the S&M plans are cost-effective because we have studied and applied Kaizen principles to the parts and labour for each service point to remove any cost that is not associated with that service.

 

What plans are on offer?

We’re offering S&M plans for short haul/long haul and intercity operations.

 

What did you offer before the introduction of these new plans?

We had a generic S&M plan for all our vehicles – meaning one size fits all. We now have a plan for each vehicle in its specific operation.

 

What is the difference between the service and maintenance plans? What is covered with each plan?

The service plans pay for the service parts, lubricants and labour for each service as per the manufacturer’s specification. The maintenance plans cover the costs of servicing as well as certain wearing parts (including the labour costs).

 

Are service and maintenance plans becoming more popular with truck customers?

Yes. This is driven by the fact that operators would like to know the total cost of servicing and maintaining the vehicle for the life of the contract. This cost is a major focus point and helps the operator to choose the brand of truck purchased for the contract.

 

In launching your new S&M plans, you chose to partner with Standard Bank instead of going it alone. Why?

S&M plans consist of a few basic elements such as accurate costing, speedy contracting and a good financial management system. Before launching our new plans, we re-evaluated our existing plans. That was back in 2018. We then identified the elements of new plans that could be handled by Hino SA. We decided to find a partner to handle everything else. A good financial system is important to operate a successful product. After doing some research in the marketplace, we reached the conclusion that we were comfortable to partner with Standard Bank due to their experience, systems and knowledge that they already have in place. This will give Hino the edge in the marketplace.

 

You mention that the bank’s technical team in its call centre have workbench experience. Can you elaborate on this please? Are they ex-technicians? Or have you brought in the Standard Bank staff members for training in the workshop?

Standard Bank has employed qualified technicians with a minimum of five years of experience of repairing vehicles in a dealership. We have also taken these members to the Hino dealer network to gain first-hand experience of all the procedures at Hino dealerships. This was done to give them an understanding of the process. They now understand the importance of applying urgency when authorizing and paying for the service to be completed. They also understand the need for a quick return of the vehicle to the customer’s operation.

 

You have mentioned the standard fitment of telematics in your trucks. Does the customer pay for this? If so, how much?

The Hino Connect system will be a standard fitment on Hino vehicles sold with S&M plans and this will be at no cost to the customer for a period of three years. Once again we have partnered with a leading telematics partner in the telematics industry, Cartrack. We chose Cartrack as they were very instrumental in being able to reverse engineer some of the coded systems from Hino Motors’ CAN systems. Should the customer wish to extend the telematics services this can be negotiated with Cartrack.

 

Does the telematics function incorporate tracking and recovery of vehicles in the event of a hijacking?

Hino Connect includes accident reconstruction as well as a theft and hijack recovery service.

 

You also refer to “driver behaviour” when talking about telematics. So, will the telematics system teach drivers to be better and more economical drivers? Can fuel savings result?

Hino Connect will monitor and report on some pre-set driver actions such as harsh take-off, harsh braking, road speed adherence and geo-fenced operations. It will also support the Hino Aftersales and HinoCare divisions with fault code reporting for breakdown assistance. On the side of the fuel and economy performance, we can monitor the “green band” driving habits of the driver and report on this.

 

We see the S&M plans will become available on used trucks. When?

The plans are currently available with all new Hino vehicles. We have also extended the sale of these plans to vehicles with a full service history at a Hino dealer that are still within six months of purchase. As we grow into the product and we stabilize it, we will be able to sell these plans to older vehicles with full service histories at a Hino dealer.

 

Looking forward, what sort of buy-in are you expecting from the new aftersales offering? I guess you have some sort of prediction in terms of percentage of new truck sales that you envisage will happen WITH the customer opting for the S&M plans?

We have plans to grow the sales of the S&M plans to the point that we would like to see every Hino vehicle being sold with S&M plans. To strengthen our focus on this we will set the dealers specific targets on sales of the plans. We will also use our call agents to market the plans to customers who have not yet purchased one. We will also conduct marketing and promotions of the new products with various stakeholders.