The founder of geometry Archimedes said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

In 2005, no one expected Yuchai Machinery Co., Ltd. (Yuchai) at the corner of China to achieve cumulative sales of over 500,000 units as the first multi-cylinder diesel engine manufacturer in the industry to bring its sales back to 500,000 units without the support of vehicle manufacturers and amid the market slump in 2013. Its year-on-year sales growth was far above the average level of the industry and its market share increased 1 percent more on the basis of an increase of 3 percent in 2012.

Industrial colleagues could not help asking how Yuchai achieved that.

Warm service

Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai, probably cannot explain the reason in a few words, but as a loyal customer of Yuchai, Hou Kai generalized the reason in a few words: "sturdy, easy to use, economical and fast service".

Hou is the legal person of Chengdu Longquan Combined Transport Company. It was especially important for the commercial vehicle owner making money by vehicles to select an engine with outstanding quality and service. The company has 65 tour buses operating in Sichuan Province. 62 of these buses are powered by Yuchai and the other three purchased at discounts could not be powered by Yuchai.

According to him, he has operated the buses for nearly three years and had them maintained on time at Yuchai Chengdu Anda service station, and no problems have occurred.

Hou was satisfied with Yuchai's quality products. He not only purchased Yuchai-powered buses himself, but also recommended them to his friends as a voluntary promoter of Yuchai's products. Driven by him, the customers around scrambled to purchase Yuchai-powered buses.

Yuchai's fast, warm and considerate service has enhanced the loyalty of many customers in Sichuan. Liu, leader of Fleet 107 of Dongxing Company under Chengdu Public Transport Group, is just one of them.

Fleet 107 has a total of over 2,000 buses which carried engines of other brands in earlier years. With the efforts of Yuchai Sichuan Office, the team finally agreed to try Yuchai engines on 10m buses. After Yuchai engines were put into operation, Liu was satisfied with their performance and impressed by Yuchai's commitment and fast service in terms of after-sales maintenance. "Product problems are unavoidable, but Yuchai's responsibility and customer-oriented service make me willing to give Yuchai more chances." Liu told the reporter that all 10m buses on his team are powered by Yuchai and the company has placed an early order for 10 Yuchai-powered buses.

The reporter learned that Yuchai's "fast sincere" service brand has become one of China's most competitive brands and an industrial model.

According to sources, Yuchai has established 49 domestic and overseas offices, over 3,000 service stations, over 100 overseas service agencies and over 5,000 parts sales outlets, forming a service network with the largest scale, smallest service radius, longest warranty mileage and fastest response in China's engine industry.

As Fan Zengfu, head of Anda service station, recalled, on the afternoon of January 26, they got a call from Yuchai Sichuan Office saying a national V gas engine of Guangan Linshui Public Transport Company could not be refueled with the fault light on. As some staff had taken days off with the Spring Festival around the corner, the service station immediately sent technicians Wang Chao and Tang Zuyuan to drive over 450 kilometers to the scene. They arrived at 9 PM after a six hours' ride, repaired the engine overnight and eliminated the fault around 2 AM.

They should have been put up at the time, but they had got a repair call from a customer operating Yutong buses in Shuangliu, Chengdu reporting a fault of a national V gas engine on the way to Linshui, because Anda service station had only one diagnostic unit, they had to immediately return to Guangan for handling as they guided the customer in emergency handling by telephone.

Unfortunately, the Guangan-Nanchong section was closed due to a heavy fog and would be reopened to traffic by the noon of the next day at the soonest. The staff would arrive in Chengdu the next night at the earliest.

Thus, the staff decided to drive slowly in turn along the provincial highway in the heavy fog and detoured to Chengdu. It was past 2 PM the next day as they arrived in Chengdu. As they had driven nearly 12 hours, for the sake of their safety, Head Fan decided to personally drive them to Huanglongxi, Shuangliu.

There are many cases as such. Gong Guanwei, service manager of Yuchai Sichuan Office, told the reporter, Yuchai's service stations must be familiar with three service rules: service stations should implement the system of service first (service first regardless of responsibility), the system of responsibility for first inquiry (whoever accepts a case is responsible for handling it) and the system of responsibility for maintenance (whoever serves follows up the case). Yuchai tolerates no rejection to serve customers. Once found to reject service, service stations will be subject to degrading or cancelation in assessment.

With the strong support of over 100 service stations in Sichuan including Anda service station, Yuchai's sales have grown steadily and its products have enjoyed good reputation in Sichuan.

In a media interview, Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai Group, said proudly, the service network of Yuchai engines is best in China. Some foreign opponents are no match for Yuchai heavily due to their after-sales services inferior to Yuchai's.

Actually, Yuchai has put service in a place of strategic importance for many years. While consolidating its service advantage, Yuchai has taken effective measures to achieve breakthrough in service.

Professional support

Fastness and sincerity is attitude, and efficiency is the real value. As we know, reaching the scene at the earliest possible time is just the beginning of service and what satisfies and reassures customers is service quality.

Efficient operation needs mature system support. Service efficiency improvement depends on service load reduction from quality improvement and more professional customer matching based on service capacity improvement.

Gong told the reporter, Yuchai divided its over 3,000 service stations into core stations and specialized stations according to the lean concept, conducted specialized management by grade, and adopt different policies according to matching fields. The move has not only defined the service capacity of service stations of different grades, but also improved Yuchai's overall service capacity. As an independent engine supplier in the domestic auto industry, Yuchai has a wide range of products and numerous customers, covering fields like automobile, engineering, ship, general machinery, agricultural machinery and generating set, thus training and managing over its 100 service stations in Sichuan is Yuchai's work emphasis.

Regarding this, the reporter asked how Yuchai ensures that its service stations provide service effectively.

Gong told the reporter, generally, the company gives systematic trainings to the staff of service stations in all areas before the national emission standard is upgraded or the company launches new products in volume to ensure effective service, and coordinate to duly and effectively resolve some special problems via office clerks or the company. "Even major faults should be eliminated in three working days and all solutions should be subject to final verification in after-sales service." That is to say, fault handling is completed only after affirmative replies to solutions proposed by Yuchai are received from customers.

Aiming at the requirement that trucks should be equipped with electronically-controlled engines after the national IV emission standard for diesel engines and the national V emission standard for gas engines come into effect this January 1, Yuchai has invested heavily in national IV diesel engine and national V gas engine maintenance trainings.

According to sources, Yuchai set about national IV training a couple of years ago, and has developed the capacity for nationwide national IV coverage and kept ahead of its industrial peers. Besides, Yuchai has had tremendous strength in electronic control service for city buses in tier-1 and 2 cities.

Just as a famous Chinese saying goes, "Food and fodder should go ahead of troops and horses", Yuchai's fast rise amid the market slump has been closely related to its strong service system and capacity.

"Sales are trees and services are roots at Yuchai, only deep roots can produce luxuriant leaves," Gong said. In years of career, he encountered a lot of intricate and unacceptable cases. As terminal customer service is difficult in the commercial vehicle industry, monitoring and standardization of customers' operation is deficient and it is difficult to define responsibility, enterprises are required to think in customers' position.

The reporter thought industrial manufacturers are stepping up traditional industry transformation and upgrading to promote the development and expansion of the service industry, especially the modern service industry. Given the specialties of sub-industries, they probably must pay more attention to "professionalism" of service.

Our manufacturing technology perhaps has been very professional, but our service industry has been far from "professional". The key to transformation from traditional service to modern service is exactly "professional service concept".

Attitude decides everything. As an independent engine manufacturer, Yuchai has a deeper understanding of professionalism in terms of market analysis, product design, manufacturing and service. It is the focus and professionalism that has helped Yuchai move the "world" of market and soar amid the market slump.

(Source: Yang Hongying/cinn.cn)