Volvo Trucks is battling hard against spreading the Coronavirus with stringent measures across its dealers to help give customers confidence in its sites and services.
“As soon as arrive you’ll see sanitiser, disinfectant and blue paper towel, explained David Sullivan, regional MD, Volvo Truck and Bus Centre East Anglia.
“There are various notices saying please use the sanitiser and use the disinfectant and we’ve put yellow lines down 2m away from our front desks. Staff have disposable blue gloves to retrieve the keys from the customer and disinfect them, and we make sure they’re disinfected along the route to getting to a technician.”
The cleaning doesn’t just stop at the front door either, if a vehicle is coming in for work it is also subjected to a thorough cleanse.
“The technicians disinfect the door handles, steering wheels, seat, indicator stalks and the I-Shift controller as they make their way into the truck, so it is safe for them to be working on it,” continued Sullivan.
Volvo East Anglia still has all of its dealerships open and operating as close to normal as possible, but they have seen their staffing levels fall by about a third as some members of staff self-isolate. Sullivan said, however, that the business is doing what it can to maintain its normal activity because they need to be there to serve its customers who are delivering food, drinks and medicines, as well as those having to manage waste.
“We need to help and make sure these trucks are on the road, I’m very grateful to the staff who are continuing to make sure our customers trucks are legal and can carry on the work they need to do. We’ve had to take some steps to ensure our own staff safety but also the safety of our customers.”
Once the vehicle moves into the workshop, the technicians keep a 2m gap in order to maintain social distancing rules and the driver is asked to sit in a waiting room which has had several of its chairs removed so as to keep drivers at a safe distance from each other.
“We’re actually discouraging people to sit and wait with us,” said Sullivan. “We’ll offer them a courtesy car if its appropriate, so they can leave our premises and we can get on without them being there and having to stay and potentially be a danger to themselves or other drivers.”
Once the work has been completed and the truck is ready to be handed back, the cleaning process begins again.
“We hand the truck back to the driver showing them that we are wiping down the steering wheel, the indicator stalk etc… and then finally the keys, so that they can see we are doing those things and they get the confidence that we are taking this seriously to make sure their truck gets back to them ready for them to use,” he said.
Sullivan added: “Health and safety is one of Volvo’s core values, and more than ever we need to make sure we are looking after each other right now.”
