

A Volvo customer service representative hands a call at the OEM’s Uptime Center in Greensboro, North Carolina.
It’s early on a Tuesday morning, and I’m sitting in the Volvo Uptime Center in Greensboro, North Carolina, waiting on phone calls from fleets and drivers with down trucks to come in.
I’m not by myself, of course. Because only an insane person would put me in charge of a customer service initiative of this magnitude.
Instead, I’m sitting at the desk of Volvo Customer Service Representative Zoubeida White, who will be fielding incoming calls from all over North America.
Live Without a Net in Volvo’s Uptime Center
I’m in Greensboro at Volvo’s sprawling North American headquarters with a group of transportation journalists to visit the Volvo Uptime Center.
The goal is to see first-hand how the truck maker combines its Volvo Connect telematics service with the Uptime Center to deliver world class support when a Volvo (or Mack) truck goes down.
Volvo Trucks North America has decided to roll the dice this fine, November morning.
I’ll be joining Zoubeida live, while she fields calls from truckers and fleets all over North America. All of whom are having some kind of problem with their trucks. It could be anything from a flat tire, to a major traffic accident.
As you can imagine, the calls can be difficult – even volatile. Which is why initially, Volvo managers considered simply recording some calls and playing them back for journalists.
But, in a sign of their confidence in the procedures, programs, services and people they’ve developed at the Uptime Center, the decision was made to simply pair journalists with a Volvo Customer Care specialist and let us eavesdrop on real customer calls in real time – and let the chips fall where they may.
There are no safety nets in place. Volvo is trusting its customer service representatives to show us what do what they do every single day. And they deliver this service 24/7 – all around the clock and on holidays.
Uptime Reps Get Intensive Training
Zoubeida is a reserved, bright-eyed young women who exudes a sense of calm and quiet confidence (which I, quite frankly, don’t share.)
In a few minutes, I know her phone is going to ring. And on the other end of the line is going to be some poor driver or fleet manager who – most likely – is having a horrible day.

Volvo customer service representative Zoubeida White shows HDT Executive Editor Jack Roberts how she accesses critical telematics data to effectively work a truck breakdown.
And, given my usual interactions with “customer service lines,” they’re more than likely mad as hell, too.
But Zoubeida just chuckles at my angst.
It’s a fine morning on the East Coast. And the rest of the country is just now starting to wake up. Moreover, the weather this Fall has been unseasonably mild. Cold weather really ramps up the incoming call volume, she says. And, with Thanksgiving less than a week away, winter still has yet to coming roaring in. So, things are really calm on this particular morning. And she expects it to stay that way.
For a little while, anyway.
On a quiet day like this, things don’t really start picking up until after lunch, she tells me.
Unlike my own desk, which resembles Fred Sanford’s front yard, Zoubeida’s desk is completely squared away and free of clutter. In fact, every desk in the large, modern and well-lit Uptime Center is equally neat and tidy.
That’s because Volvo Customer Service reps don’t have to deal with paperwork. Everything is handled on computers.
And when I say “everything,” I’m not kidding.
Thanks to Volvo Connect telematics, as soon as a call comes in, and Zoubeida plugs a truck’s VIN into her computer, she knows everything about that vehicle: She can see the year, make and model of the truck. She knows who owns it. And she can see all the fault codes associated with the incident being worked – including some issues the driver or the maintenance manager may not yet be aware of.
Zoubeida can use a GPS mapping program to see exactly where the truck is – and the locations of all the nearest Volvo Centers or any other repair shops that may be able to assist the down vehicle. Email addresses and phone numbers are at her fingertips. And an AI-enabled chat program transcribes all conversations she has and creates a transcript that provides a complete record of the phone calls.
It’s a lot to keep up with and manage.
So, I’m not surprised when Zoubeida tells me the Volvo Uptime Center training program is six months long, with an emphasis not just on technical procedures, but also in proactive and empathetic customer service interaction.
It also included hands-on courses on diesel engines, transmission, aftertreatment, and other vital truck components and systems, so the reps know exactly what issues a customer is dealing with when they call in.
Volvo knows that when people call into the Uptime Center, they’re having a bad day. And Mission Number One for Zoubeida and her colleagues is to understand and help the callers – not make their day any worse.
Real, Live Human Help
On her main computer screen, a program shows how many Uptime reps are available to take calls, and how many calls are waiting.
With a quick click, Zoubeida goes live and enters the queue. And in short order, her phone rings.
The first thing I’m struck by is how quickly Volvo puts its customers in contact with a real, life, human being.
There’s no computer to talk to. No endless phone trees. No explaining the nature of your problem so it can “direct you to the proper customer service representative.” There’s no information to repeat three or four times.

Volvo customer service representative Zoubeida White checks a GPS map to determine the location of a down truck.
Many Uptime reps are bilingual. Zoubeida, for example, speaks both English and French. And I notice her colleague at the next desk over is fielding calls in both English and Spanish.
Zoubeida’s first call of the day is a fleet manager in West Virgina. He’s already called in once. So Zoubeida asks him for his case number. Within seconds, all the information about the down truck is on the screen in front of her.
A quick glance at the fault code data tells her the truck has a blown turbocharger, with associated exhaust aftertreatment system issues.
There are also some ECM issues listed. But these are most likely related to the current ECM/software recall issues and didn’t contribute to the breakdown. (Once the truck is at a dealership, the technicians will automatically take care of any unresolved recall items, as part of Volvo’s standard operating procedures.)
The fleet manager probably has an upset driver on his hands, because he’s calling back to check and see when a wrecker will be getting to the downed truck.
Zoubeida places the caller on hold and pulls up her GPS screen to see where the truck is. “Wow,” she says. “He’s in the middle of nowhere.”
Looking at the computer screen, I see that she’s right. The truck is down on a state highway somewhere in the middle of West Virginia.
“The nearest dealership is 76 miles away,” Zoubeida adds, pointing at that information at the left side of the map screen.
With a couple of mouse clicks, she has a towing company in Wheeling, West Virginia, on the line. The wrecker company has the Uptime Center reference number as well, and within a minute, Zoubeida confirms that a tow truck has been dispatched and is about an hour away from reaching the down truck.
She clicks back over to the fleet manager and relays this information to him.
“OK. Good deal,” he says.
Zoubeida asks if she needs to call the Volvo dealership in Wheeling to confirm parts, service and a repair time, but the caller declines.
“Not just yet,” he says. “I’ve still got to get with the maintenance manager and the driver dispatcher and work some things out. I’ll call you back.”
With the call ended, Zoubeida takes herself out of the “active” queue and quickly updates the downed truck’s case file. She notes all aspects of the conversations she just had, including the ETA for the wrecker and that the fleet manager will be calling back soon to approve and initiate repairs.
A Quiet Morning After All
Zoubeida’s next call comes in from Owalla, Oklahoma. In a few ways, it parallels the first call.
With the case number plugged in, Zoubeida can see that this truck is a VNL sleeper model with dead batteries. A glance at the GPS map shows the truck is in an empty mall parking lot, next to a Panda Express.
In all likelihood, the driver ran the truck batteries down hoteling overnight.
With the caller on hold, Zoubeida reaches out to the Volvo dealer in Tulsa, about 25 miles away. She quickly confirms that a service truck has already been dispatched to the scene and will arrive in less than an hour.
Switching back to the fleet manager, she updates him on the service truck’s ETA, and reviews the repair protocols with him.
The fleet manager is pretty sure that this issue is just a simple dead battery. So, if the truck jumps off, that will be the end of the case.
If not, the technician will test the batteries and the electric system and replace the batteries if needed.
The cost estimates for all three scenarios have already been emailed out to the fleet manager.
With this call ended, Zoubeida once again updates the case file, noting the names of everyone she talked to, service truck ETAs and any other new information or details.

HDT Executive Editor Jack Roberts looks on while Volvo Uptime Center customer service representative Volvo customer service representative Zoubeida White works a truck breakdown call.
There’s one final call I sit in with Zoubeida. It’s a simple request from a driver for a tow truck to undeck three new VNLs delivered to a dealership in southern Indiana. The only real issue to be confirmed is who’s paying for the service call. Zoubeida confirms that’s it’s Volvo Trucks North America, and an arrival time for wrecker.
After the trucks are undecked, the wrecker service will call back, confirm the job is done, and the case will be closed.
Once again, Zoubeida takes herself out of the active queue and begins to update all the information and expectations laid out in the call.
And with that, my time with Zoubeida is done. I came away deeply impressed with her customer relations skills and expertise in managing the calls that came in.
And I couldn’t help but notice that Zoubeida received priority status on every call she made. Not once was she put on hold. In each instance, she was talking to the right person within seconds and getting the information she needed to relay to the caller she was helping.
It turned out that Zoubeida was right. It was a quiet morning and nothing too extreme came her way. She was quickly and easily able to help each caller move along and get a little closer to resolving the problem that prompted a call into the Uptime Center in the first place.
It’s obvious to me that Volvo has put a lot of time, thought and planning into how its Uptime runs and how its representatives work with the callers to help them in any way they can. It’s a world-class service and one that more than a few companies I deal with regularly would do well to copy.
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