Service Engineer as a Teacher
Product- derived service calls for on-site technical support comprise a large part of the demand on service engineers’ time. However, it is not uncommon to find that, quite often, service engineers travel a long distance to attend to a “serious “ fault and end up replacing a missing oil strainer; cleaning an air filter; re-connecting a bypassed safety device, or venting out air from a hydraulic system. These calls are, of course, important and need immediate attention to restore a machine back to service but such visits do not represent great value creation on the part of the service engineer.
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A mature service engineer from a customer-focused company would look at the long term interest of the customer and would make it a point to ensure that the customer’s maintenance team know what went wrong and why. He would involve the right people in the process of diagnosing the problem and the logic behind the manner in which he was putting things together. All this was perfectly in line with the company’s policy approach that demanded of its people: ‘let us make the customer independent of the seller’s on-site support to the extent it is possible’.
I have met committed service engineers who make it a point to leave the customers a little wiser by imparting some knowledge every time they get an opportunity to interact with them. This information could enhance product knowledge, maximise plant effectiveness, facilitate plant maintenance or offer possibility of process improvement. Those responsible for the upkeep of the machinery are most receptive at a time when a fault is being attended to and the service engineer looks at it as the best opportunity to create a rapport with the maintenance men. Such service engineers are often regarded as one amongst their own fraternity, though on the payroll of another company.
Every Encounter – A Training Session
It was the teacher’s role of the service engineer which provided the biggest payoff to K. G. Khosla Compressors Ltd. During the period that followed after the technologically superior Khosla / Crepple compressor was put in the market, pressure on derived demand on service engineer’s time reduced progressively. Service engineers were put on voluntary regular visits to customers sites to educate as many persons as they could get together, about maintenance of the new compressors. In the first one or two visits, they would conduct a hands-on training programme and in the subsequent visits they would challenge the operators and maintenance men by posing problems to help them improve their grasp.
As high degree of responsiveness of K G Khosla Compressors put them in leadership position and gained competitors’ envy, long estranged but very important customers chose to get back into its fold. Many of these and other customers made sure that every visit of a service engineer was turned into a training session to cover as much details as they would consider necessary to ensure better up keep of their air compressors. Customers saw great value addition in the on-site training imparted by the service engineer. enabling their own people to handle more complex maintenance issues.
This is one the four blogs in this series apart fro the Preamble. Click on The Technician; A Friend in Need; A Salesman or Preamble, to reach the relevant blog.
Gopal K Gureja
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*I have used the title ‘service engineer’ in a generic sense for all those who provide on-site technical support irrespective of the official designation they may have.