Wheelchair Van Dealer Service - Training Our Technicians & Keeping You Moving!
Dealer Service Training
BraunAbility has revamped our dealer service training program for the 2009 season. I would like to share these exciting changes with you and describe their implementation.
In previous years, the technicians who service your Braunability equipment were required to attend live service schools at our corporate headquarters in Winamac, Indiana. We basically had two separate sessions: a three-day program for wheelchair lift service training, and another three-day program for wheelchair vans. This schedule gave us ample time to cover all aspects of the products, and time to test each student's abilities. However, it was quite a sacrifice for our dealers. In order to certify in our complete product line, our dealers would have to send at least one technician to two weeks worth of schooling. The expense and downtime was an obvious issue. We also take surveys of the students after each day of class and found that the number one suggestion was to have more"hands-on" training during the schools. Before 2009 we spent much of the time going over classroom instruction and theory along with hands-on tasks that the students would have to perform.
About midyear, 2008, we started holding online classes that covered the same theory as what we would cover during a live service school. These presentations were recorded, giving our dealer's technicians the ability to review them at their leisure. We also supplied online testing that the tech could take after reviewing the videos. Completion of the tests would then qualify the technician to attend a live service school at our training facility in Indiana. Now, because the tech "pre-qualified" with online testing and theory, we were able to schedule three-day schools that are completely hands-on and cover all of our products in one session. This cuts the dealer downtime in half, and gives about 70% hands-on time for our students. Another great improvement is that all of the hands-on tasks given to the techs are real-life situations and represent real issues that our dealers will have to face. We just finished our first school in this format last week and it went better than we could have expected!
"I found that the presentations and classes that BraunAbility put together were extremely helpful from the vans to the lifts. I felt that everything was very well thought out and will help not to only service our customers, but promote BraunAbility products as well. I want to thank again, everybody at BraunAbility for having this training session". - Justin Ray from Mid America Coach "The guys at BraunAbility put on a great class! It was very informative and will help me serve our customers. The class was great at showing the proper steps in diagnosing an issue with the Braun Entervan and the wheelchair lifts. Helpful with all BraunAbility Products! They all did a great job! - Kevin Taylor from Mid America Coach
As the coordinator for this new program, I can't be more excited for our future classes! We have the best team in the industry putting a lot of hard work into these schools for one purpose: to keep you moving!
