AAA wants me to go "remote dispatch"....I don't know anything about it- Can someone please advise me on this? I am pretty sure it won't work in my paticular area- nothing else does (cell phones- radios- onstar- and most G.P.S. will not work in all the areas that I cover)
Littleblondie towinghmmm...4 days & no replies.
so...uhm...can someone at least tell me how the remote stuff is supposed to work?
or maybe..... if you are a AAA independent contractor, how do you recieve your calls from AAA? is it from the phone? online? directly into trucks? smoke signals? esp?
littleblondie towingI work for AAA and have never heard the term "remote dispatch". I would ask for clarification from your AAA Filed Representative.
AAA does have "digital dispatch" which would require the instalation of a "MDC" terminal in the truck and the calls would show on the "MDC" screen in the truck and the drivers would be able to mark themselves "enroute", "on scene" and be able to clear the calls themselves. If what you say is true about the poor coverage you have with cell phones and such, I find it hard to believe that "remote dispatch" would be "digital dispatch".
There is also the ability to receive calls by FAX. When the dispatcher marks the call dispatched, it would automatically FAX to your fax machine.
I don't know how you are receiving or clearing your calls at the present time, but in some cases, calls are "temporarily" cleared and some garages fax in their clearing information or clear their calls via the internet.
Talk to your Field Representative and I'm sure he/she will be able to clarify things for you.Thanks for the info....I'm pretty sure you're right about the name. And yes, I'll be talking to our rep. soon, but I just wanted to get some "inside info" on what to expect. I mean...I like to do a little research before I talk to "sales people" ha ha.
Who pays for the whole thing? (ok...dumb question...let me try it this way)...How much is it going to cost me?
littleblondietowingWe have several contractor here who are on "Digital Dispatch". Basically the drivers are assigined a log in and they log into the MDC. Once they are loged in they will be able to view their calls. The first step is acknowledging (just pushing a button) the call so that the dispatch center knows that they are aware of the call. When they go enroute to the call they just push another button. When they are on scene, again they push a button. The dispatchers will be able to message the driver asking for ETA updates, and other information and the drivers in turn will be able to message the dispatchers. Basically the messaging is like instant messaging and they can ask for more info, ask for ETA's to be increased (or they have the ability to change the ETA themselves), ask that a member be called out with just a push of a button, and message for whatever else they may need. The drivers will have the ability to clear the calls themselves, they just need to learn the clearing codes and if they have any problems, I am hoping your dispatchers would clear their calls for them graciouslly just as ours do for our contractors.
Our contractors here complained about the digital at first (you know how it is, no one like new things) but now when the system goes down for maintenance, they have a fit because they don't have the Digital. Each driver will have their own log in so you will be able to keep track of which driver did which call and in case of any damage (which we hope there is none) the damage rep will know which driver provided the service.
Alot of our contractor like the fact that they can message dispatch instead of calling because it saves on their cell phone bills.
I'm not positive who is responsible for the cost of the unit or how much they are, but I do know that if a contractor quits or we terminate our relationship with them, the MDC unit comes back to AAA so I would assume the unit is AAA property and maybe the installation in the truck would be at your cost (but don't quote me because that is not my area of expertise).
Dispatching by fax also works well if you have someone in the shop all day, we have several contactors on fax dispatch and there is a schedule set in the system setting specific hours for the calls to fax to the shop. Outside of those hours, the calls are called into what ever number you designate and the drivers would communicate with dispatch as they are now.
Technology is wonderful if you give it a chance and give the drivers time to become acclimated to the change.
I personally would prefer all my contractors to be on Digital dispatch, but unfortunatelly, the MDC's do not work well in extremely rural areas or in areas where there are alot of hills and valleys.
Maybe some of the AAA Fleet drivers could expand a bit more on the benefit of using the MDC's in the trucks.
That all sounds fine if you wish for your company's trucks and drivers to be controlled by AAA. To me it sounds like a way to discourage AAA contractors from doing "profitable" non-AAA work.
Many people only do AAA because they can prioritize the calls and handle the highest paying calls first. Which is why you see 2 hour ETA's for AAA customers.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm AAA bashing, but their low rates contribute to low rates in the whole industry. Same as the union auto manufacturers influence the non-union plants to pay more.Thank you for all of the info..... It sounds like it could be a real cool thing to have as far as the AAA calls, and I'd kinda like to have one, but .... we're in the mountians just outside of Yosemite Natl. Park.... and I don't think it will work here, (nothing else does). But thank you for the info.
Littleblondie towing
Quote (Jason Elyria Auto @ Sep. 08 2006, 6:52 am)
That all sounds fine if you wish for your company's trucks and drivers to be controlled by AAA. To me it sounds like a way to discourage AAA contractors from doing "profitable" non-AAA work.
How would having an MDC in the truck make AAA have control of the truck and the driver? If a driver is not logged in or even if they are logged in, the driver still is able to do any "private" call or police calls. The only thing that would happen is that if the driver is logged in, they would be prompted for an ETA update and they would just have to respond with an honest answer.
If the ETA will be 1 hour, tell dispatch the ETA is 1 hour when prompted and the dispatcher will update the ETA and inform the member. No big deal.
If the driver is not logged in, the dispatcher would call the shop or the driver for an ETA update and the same thing would transpire as mentioned above, the ETA would be updated and the member advised of the delay. No big deal.
Can you explain how you figure the trucks and/or drivers would be "controlled" by AAA? Makes no sense to me.
