Information center: if you know how to count

Five years ago, the concept of “contract work” in the automotive industry was an innovation, and now this product is becoming an increasingly effective business tool. At least, this is evidenced by the experience of operating Mercedes-Benz Trucks in recent years.

Time, as you know, is money. Especially when it comes to logistics, whether it is the delivery of goods from country to country, long-distance transportation, or the supply of building materials. But the more intensively used vehicles, the sooner the day comes when the car is out of warranty, the higher the likelihood of some repairs and downtime. And here sometimes “surprises” happen: at the service center, there are queues or suddenly the tariffs are raised, the dealer does not undertake repairs, and the client does not receive money, it takes a lot of time to find suitable parts, which later turns out to be faulty. How to avoid new problems?

Looking for profit

The best way to do this is with a service contract. The owner of a fleet (no matter large or very small), this allows you to save money, plan and optimize costs and reduce related costs (in particular, document flow, payments, settlement of disputes).

That this product is very useful, easy to make an example of those companies that use Mercedes-Benz trucks way, Actros, Axor and Atego. If in 2016, the owners of such cars purchased a total of about 500 brand service agreements, then a year later there were already 1300, and in 2018 the figure increased to 1560. Even more dynamic demand, the automaker undertakes this year – only in the first quarter, Daimler KAMAZ Trucks Rus customers bought 502 such products. Apparently, having tasted and appreciated the innovations, equipment operators begin to understand how profitable it is.

Indeed, when purchased together with a Mercedes-Benz vehicle service contract, the customer receives not just a truck, but a complete transport solution that allows them to focus on their core business without wasting time and money on maintaining their fleet. First of all, in the contract for the entire period of its operation it guarantees a fixed amount of payment for the service. This means that for at least two to five years (depending on the type of contract) I can't think about inflation – the cost of a standard hour of a spare parts dealer “consumables” has not changed! All maintenance and repairs are carried out only in authorized Mercedes-Benz service centers, which use only original spare parts and specialized equipment. Accompanying bonuses can be attributed to the fact

How it works?

Service under the contract for a Mercedes-Benz truck is a contract for the maintenance of vehicles in dealer service centers of the brand. The owner of the car enters it with a distributor – the company “Daimler KAMAZ Trucks Rus” and receives a contract through a dealer. This must be done before the first one (although there is an option where the contract is possible during the life of the power line factory warranty). The main thing is to decide which product suits you best, because the German brand today offers a range of six packages of service contracts from the main “compact” to the top of the “exceptional”. Each of them implies different conditions – the term, the maximum possible mileage, the list of works and spare parts provided… and, of course, the price.

The latter varies from less than 9.7 thousand conventional units per month in the UK “compact” 29.3 thousand to “exceptional” (annual mileage of 180 thousand km). Fuel under the same conditions will require at least 120 thousand conventional units per month. But the Mercedes-Benz distributor has such a product as a service agreement for more than 96.5 thousand conditional units for extending the warranty for the entire truck for the second year. Or a special offer – the extension of the factory warranty for the power line for the fourth year of operation, only 170,000 conventional units, similar to the current market, no one has yet.

Advantages? Certainly! Comfortable? Without a doubt. Provides an opportunity to improve business efficiency? For sure. It only remains to add that all cars with a service contract are also very liquid, experience shows that they are more expensive in the secondary market.