It’s a big world, and sometimes you can be far from home when things happen. At those times, there’s nothing more comforting than knowing you’re not out there facing it all alone. Hearing someone say, “I’ve got your back,” can make all the difference. Well, that’s essentially what the Cummins Corporation is saying to all of the motorhome owners with coaches powered by Cummins diesel engines. But it isn’t just, “I’ve got your back,” it’s more like, “I’ve got your back and your front and both sides. No matter what happens, I’ve got you covered.”

Power Assist

Covering owners 24/7 with outstanding customer service and support is what Cummins is all about. That is, in fact, the theme song of what I’m going to call Part I of the overall customer support operation — Cummins Power Assist. It’s a program with a central concept of 24/7 support for every Cummins-powered motorhome owner. It’s a fact of life that mechanical emergencies can happen, and when they arise, all an owner wants is someone he or she can call — someone professional who is trained to handle the problem — someone who can get them back on the road without undue delay, day or night, anywhere in the U.S. or Canada.

If that sounds like a nice story that you might find in the fiction aisle, wait until you read the fine print about Power Assist. Here’s what it says: If you are a Cummins-powered motorhome owner, help is just a toll-free phone call away. All you have to do is call (888) POWER-RV [(888) 769-3778], tell them your engine serial number, and the Cummins Power Assist team will take charge and handle your every service need.

No, I’m not kidding. The moment your call comes in, the service representative will access information about your Cummins engine. The rep will locate the nearest authorized service center that best suits your repair needs, contact the service center for you and make sure they can start the repair immediately.

One phone call is all it takes, and all these details will be handled for you. That’s what I call service! But I’m only getting warmed up. If your motorhome is still drivable, the service representative (your very own ambassador to Service Mecca) will give you directions and tell you approximately how many miles it is to the service center. If your coach cannot be driven, the advisor will arrange for towing or roadside assistance to come to your motorhome’s location.

Before long, your motorhome will be safely at the service facility and you will be given an estimate of how long it will take for diagnosis. All this time, your Power Assist advisor will stay in constant contact with you, making sure everything goes well. On average, a Power Assist representative will make a dozen phone calls during the repair process, keeping you informed of what’s happening every step of the way, so you never feel like you’ve been left hanging.

Thanks to the computer age, the very first time you use Power Assist, all the necessary information about your motorhome will be entered into the computer database. For any future service, all the information can be processed at the speed of electrons (that’s fast!). But here’s the good part — every Cummins owner gets Power Assist for free. When you take delivery of a Cummins-powered motorhome, the engine is already registered. There are no annual fees, no special enrollment forms to be filled out. Nothing. Just turn the key, head down the highway and enjoy your motorhome, knowing all the while that somebody has your back.

When I asked Tom Kieffer, executive director of marketing and customer support excellence, how this extraordinary level of service and support came about, he said, “It’s a concept that goes all the way back to the foundation of the company. From a corporate perspective, we want to listen to the customers and let their priorities drive the kind of work we do. We want to figure out how to execute what’s most important to them flawlessly. At the end of the day, we want to be easy to do business with.”

QuickServe

As if that were not enough, here’s Part II of a grand three-element customer support platform. This segment is called QuickServe, and it is designed to ensure that you get service without delay, regardless of whether or not you are able to bring your coach to a service department.

Under the QuickServe program, if you can bring your motorhome to a Cummins distributor, the company guarantees that any engine service performed in-shop with a standard repair time of four hours or less will be completed that same day — or you receive a $75 credit toward future Cummins parts or service work.

To make the program even more comprehensive, if the motorhome is disabled to the point that it can’t be driven to the service center, a Cummins QuickServe truck and a certified service technician will be dispatched within four hours of your call — or you’ll receive a 75 dollar credit toward parts or future labor.

The folks at Cummins understand that having access to the right information is a valuable tool for owners. But they also realize that published paper manuals and CD-ROMs are not able to keep pace with the ever-changing world of parts and service. So they implemented another component to the QuickServe program; it is called QuickServe Online and it serves as a complete reference for Cummins parts and service information that is continuously updated 24/7. If you have Internet service availability, all you need to do is log on to the web site at http://quickserve.cummins.com and you will have access to parts and service information for nearly eight million Cummins engine serial numbers and more than a million related documents.

By entering your engine serial number, you can search through a nearly endless library of information. The site is divided into four parts — Parts, Service, Warranty, and Support.

Here’s what is included on the parts menu:

• Parts catalogs with complete parts listings by engine serial number    and exploded-view drawings
• Service parts topics
• Engine data plate information
• Online pick-list for placing orders
• Cummins ReCon® part number cross-reference
• A related parts guide

And the service side of the menu is incredibly rich:
• Operation and maintenance manuals
• Troubleshooting and repair manuals
• Service bulletins
• Shop manuals
• Temporary Repair Practices (TRPs)

Then there’s the warranty section:
• Warranty manuals
• Standard Repair times (SRTs)
• Campaigns and alerts
• Link to the RapidServe web site for filing claims online

And finally, there are the Support features:
• Publications catalog
• Service tools catalog
• Service tools instructions

As a motorhome owner, the QuickServe Online web service is the fastest way to access information about part numbers and repair procedures. If you are wondering about the parts and labor being performed on your coach, you can use this website to ensure that your repairs are done right. And its available to you every hour of every day, rain or shine. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Coach Care

And now for Part III in the marvelous trio of customer service and support programs offered to all Cummins-powered motorhome owners. If the company has your back with Power Assist, and they are watching the front with QuickServe, this third part — Coach Care — is what surrounds every Cummins owner.

I’ve driven the highways of America enough to know that there are some RV repair facilities that I wouldn’t want to spend much time in. All that has changed, now that there is Coach Care. Imagine pulling into an RV service center and finding emergency service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Imagine finding complimentary overnight parking for your motorhome, with electrical hookups, sanitation and sewage disposal, and a propane filling station. Imagine stepping inside to a clean waiting room with Internet connectivity, television, a kitchenette and a place to relax while your coach is being repaired. Imagine a reciprocal warranty arrangement where repair work done at any Coach Care facility is honored within the nationwide network of service centers. No, you’re not imagining things — it really works that way.

Right now, there are 30 Coach Care facilities in operation around the country, with an ultimate goal of having fifty. All Coach Care centers are fully certified Cummins and Onan service facilities, and are authorized to work on most of the leading motorhome chassis. Many locations can also perform appliance repairs. The concept is that Coach Care wants to be your “one stop” shop for all service and repairs, whether it’s a major engine overhaul or just a routine tune up.

There is a very strict set of requirements that must be met before a facility can become a Coach Care center. Cummins spokesperson Cyndi Nigh told us, “Not just everybody can be a Coach Care facility. There’s a very rigorous three-step audit process that the distributor has to sign up to and move through and grow and evolve, to maintain a certain level of quality. And the whole network is growing. More new locations will be coming on line this year, and we have identified others that are strategically located in areas throughout the United States that we want to bring on line in the future.”

You’re Surrounded

While talking about this three-part approach to support, Tom said, “All three elements grew out of our listening to customers in terms of what their needs were. QuickServe involved a lot of research and talking with customers about their expectations about how long it should take when they have a simple repair. And we have a QuickServe guarantee that puts our money behind the statements we’re making in terms of what a customer can expect.

“Power Assist is a direct connection with the RV owners, and Coach Care grew out of a need that we heard RV owners expressing, that they really wanted someone like Cummins that could provide the technical expertise on engine and drivelines. And they want one-stop shopping, too.”

As you might discern from all of this, Tom (as well as the whole Cummins team) is totally dedicated to the concept of providing absolutely the highest quality service and support to every Cummins-powered motorhome owner. “Through all of this work,” he told me, “we want to be viewed as the most dependable supplier of engines and products in the industry. And all of this work is leading up to how we achieve that goal.”

What it all boils down to is that, when it comes to customer service and support, Cummins has you covered.