United Tractors increases uptime for customers with Field Service

United Tractors is a subsidiary of PT Astra International Tbk, one of the largest business groups in Indonesia. The company is a leading distributor of heavy equipment to the mining, construction, and engineering industries and has a nationwide support and service network.

United Tractors connects sales and service teams on Salesforce to deliver fast, proactive support to customers in remote locations.

United Tractors’ customers rely on its machinery and equipment up to 24 hours a day, and any faults or failures can affect the uptime of their operations and have a significant impact on revenue. As machinery is operated under the harshest conditions, occasional problems are unavoidable, which means United Tractors must be ready to respond quickly.

The business had a nationwide support and service network but needed more visibility into the field and insights to drive improvement. Mechanics manually recorded details of each job, and because they worked in remote locations, it sometimes took days for the information to be consolidated and shared with the head office. There were also concerns about data accuracy and completeness.

United Tractors needed faster access to data it could trust so it could make the best decisions to improve service and ultimately increase uptime for customers. This included identifying the best person for each job and determining which spare parts should be on hand.

United Tractors needed to digitally transform its operations to overcome these challenges and deliver more value for customers.

United Tractors considered developing its own application for employees to access and gather data from the field before choosing Salesforce. “To build something ourselves would have required multiple iterations and possibly multiple years to complete,” said Cindy Christian, Head of Digital at United Tractors. “Salesforce already had a solution to our challenges, which meant we could achieve our goal faster.”

The business now uses Service Cloud and Field Service to provide fast and efficient service to customers across Indonesia. Customers can log issues online or directly through their account representatives, who then use Field Service to identify and dispatch a mechanic with the skills and capacity to fix the problem.

Once onsite, mechanics use the Field Service mobile app to record details of the work performed and the time of completion. As users can seamlessly save changes without Wi-Fi, United Tractors can ensure data is captured from even the remotest of sites.

The business can also be confident in the data's accuracy, as mechanics log information directly from the field rather than filling in estimated times of completion later on.

The increased visibility into field operations helps management to better plan and manage resource allocation. It has also increased efficiency and accurate recording of the completion time for each case. This has increased the percentage of cases resolved within service level agreements (SLA) from 75% to 93% for Branch Operations and to 97% for Site Operations.

United Tractors has connected its sales team on Sales Cloud, providing reps with the same visibility into the field and any issues experienced by their customers.

Sales reps also track and manage their customer interactions in Sales Cloud, which provides leaders with a view of the pipeline and priorities requiring their support. It additionally helps them make the most efficient use of resources to ensure sales coverage across the country.

The sales and service data captured in Salesforce feeds into United Tractors' broader analytics initiatives. Combined with inputs like weather and telemetry data from equipment, the data helps United Tractors predict and proactively meet customer needs.

For example, the business can suggest servicing or replacement of parts before they wear out, helping the customer avoid unplanned downtime.

“If we compare our operations today to five years ago, it is completely different. We now operate based on analytics and can work smarter and more efficiently,” said Cindy.

United Tractors partnered with Salesforce Professional Services and local partner Metrodata to implement Salesforce. While leveraging their expertise to get started, the business has also prioritised building strong digital capabilities internally.

“I believe digital is going to continue to be core to our operations and by building these capabilities, we’ll be able to tackle any challenges we have in the future,” said Cindy.