fleetHQ Helps Magnum Deliver on its On-Time Delivery Promise

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 15, 2010 — When Magnum’s drivers experience tire-related issues on the road and call Goodyear’s fleetHQ customer service center, the time it takes them to get back on the road is vastly improved.

“We offer a delivery guarantee to many of our customers; it’s delivered on-time or it’s delivered free,” said Rodney Graham, chief executive officer of Indianapolis-based Magnum Express and Magnum Logistics. “Tires are a huge factor in our being able to meet that on-time delivery guarantee. If a tire-related roadside issue causes a delivery delay, it costs us money and hurts our reputation.

“Before we signed up for fleetHQ, response times for our tire-related calls were all over the map,” Graham said. “It could take as much as three hours or more for a tire service truck to show up and get our drivers back on the road.

“Joining fleetHQ means our average downtime due to tire-related issues is down by 50 percent and we’re saving about $18,000 on our annual roadside assistance costs,” Graham said. “fleetHQ’s been a huge time saver as well as a money saver for our company.” (Actual results may vary, based on when tires are replaced, driving and road conditions, and proper tire maintenance.)

Magnum Express, one of Magnum’s two divisions, provides dry-van portage, shuttling and spotting services in the Midwest for many retailers. Magnum Express has a fleet of 115 tractors, including 70 driven by owner-operators and 45 driven by employees, and about 350 53-foot trailers. Its other division, Magnum Logistics, provides on-site third-party logistics and operates brokerage offices in Indianapolis, Ind. and Charlotte, N.C.

Goodyear’s fleetHQ offers owner-operators and fleets such as Magnum a range of business solutions, including roadside assistance for tire-related issues, to help control and reduce their operating costs. Graham said joining fleetHQ was part of a slate of several recommendations local tire dealer, Gem City Tire, suggested to help reduce its tire expenses.

So far, all of those recommendations are saving Magnum nearly 20 percent on its annual tire expenses, including about $18,000 in savings on roadside assistance charges, according to Graham. A portion of those savings, about $3,600, comes from spending nothing on incidence fees since there are none with fleetHQ. Plus, the company doesn’t get charged different amounts for replacement tires or doesn’t get mismatched replacement tires that later have to be changed out. He estimates Magnum spends about $178,000 annually on tires and tire-related expenses. About half of that amount, close to $90,000, is spent on roadside assistance.

“Through fleetHQ, we’re billed the same price for tires we get on the road as those we pay for at home,” Graham said. “Plus, we can often get the same choice in tires that we ordinarily run. All we had to do was set up the program though our local dealer, Gem City Tire.”

For Magnum, fleetHQ’s rapid response is important not only to its bottom line, but also to its reputation. For the past three years, Magnum has been recognized by one of its largest customers, Lowe’s Home Improvement, with diamond service awards for its on-time delivery rate, hovering around 99.9 percent.

“With fleetHQ, it’s a one-call situation no matter where we are,’ Graham said. ‘We know our situation will be handled as fast as possible and we’ll get back on the road quickly. fleetHQ has been an excellent program, providing us uniform service, and helping us maintain our on-time delivery reputation and control our operating costs.”

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fleetHQ Continues Phenomenal Growth Through Faster Response

Since the beginning of the year, fleetHQ has gotten trucks of companies such as Magnum Express and Logistics back on the road in an average of two hours and 17 minutes from the time the call center takes the first call. Results may vary, based on reasons for downtime, travel conditions, and nearest location of a participating service facility.

“We’ve been able to reduce our average completed response time by 7 minutes over last year, and we intend to continue working on getting that number down,” said Tony Starling, general manager for fleetHQ.

That response rate has contributed to a phenomenal growth rate for a program that started over two years ago, he said. As of the end of July, fleetHQ had 20,611 preferred fleets and owner-operators enrolled in the program.

“fleetHQ customer service representatives have fielded nearly 94,000 calls from fleets and owner-operators from the beginning of the year to the end of July to help get their trucks back up and rolling,” Starling said. That represents a 61 percent increase over a similar seven-month period last year.

“Truck operators and fleets are finding that fleetHQ offers outstanding service regardless of the number of trucks they operate,” he said. “The program is proving popular because its mission is to respond to customers quickly and cost-effectively with no incidence fee.”