As a reliable partner, HOMAG diligently provides its customers with support when it comes to service—with innovative and traditional solutions: from spare parts management, inspections and maintenance through to remote service or modernization and training offers.
When it comes to service solutions, the company is active on many levels. A classic example is remote service: more than 90 percent of service cases are solved remotely with a global hotline team.
In order to provide customers with the right answers to their current needs quickly and precisely, the company has expanded their service portfolio in the Asia Pacific region to include the APAC Hotline. This means short response time by highly-trained specialists—professional and reliable—in the same time zone.
By establishing the APAC expertise team in the Asia Pacific region, the APAC Hotline becomes independent from the specialists in Germany (German Hotline) who have solved the more complex service cases in the past.
The APAC Hotline, an organisation built with local specialists, resolves the previous problem of different time zones between the Asia Pacific customers and the German Hotline, and now complex service cases can be handled without a detour to Germany.
From India to New Zealand, the APAC Hotline specialists are there for the company’s customers in the Asia Pacific region.
To find out exactly what the APAC Hotline means in detail and what other special features there are, FDM Asia interviewed Ilham Perdana.
Mr. Perdana is a key figure behind of APAC Hotline. An Indonesian who has completed mechanical engineering degree in Switzerland, he has been appointed as a project manager of APAC Hotline since October 2021.
FDM Asia: What is the APAC (Asia Pacific) Hotline?
Ilham Perdana (IP): APAC Hotline is an organisation consisting of qualified and competent engineer specialists with many experiences in their respective fields who are ready to help customers in Asia Pacific quickly when they have any problem with their machines or software via online connection.
In short, professional service in your time zone.
FDM Asia: What is the biggest advantage of APAC Hotline?
IP: With the new APAC Hotline, we save time and money for our customers in the APAC region, even when the issues are more complex.
The three major benefits are:
1.No matter where our customers are located in Asia Pacific, our customers only need to connect with the usual connections including email, telephone or on our digital solution applications, after which a quick assistance will be performed remotely.
2.Previously, when the issues become more complex, our customers had to establish an online connection to Germany in a different time zone for remote diagnostics. Our APAC hotline now answers our Asia Pacific customers' request in their own time zone.
3.Our hotline can receive all questions regarding the topic of mechanic, control, electricity, process engineering on the machine and any software issues.
FDM Asia: What is so special about the APAC Hotline?
IP: HOMAG has an excellent global service network with professional, highly qualified employees. The APAC hotline is the key part of this service network in Asia Pacific. With it, we can now solve even complex issues in our customers’ time zone.
FDM Asia: How do our customers in Asia Pacific contact APAC Hotline?
IP: Our customers contact HOMAG local representatives first by using email, telephone or various digital solution applications. After establishing contact, one of our experts, whether from the local team or from the APAC Hotline will automatically take the customer's request to work out a solution.”
FDM Asia: What are the operational hours of APAC Hotline?
IP: As APAC Hotline consists of qualified and competent engineer specialists from HOMAG Asia (Singapore), HOMAG Australia and HOMAG India, the operational hours of APAC Hotline stay within this region, which is relatively same zone with our customers.
Previously, HOMAG customers in APAC region had to contact German Hotline if they had any complex issues on the machine or software that were escalated by the local HOMAG service engineers; there is a time difference between Germany and countries in APAC region.
Sometimes, the local engineers, as well as customers, had to work overtime until late night if they wanted to do remote diagnostics with the German Hotline.
Now, with the APAC Hotline, there is no longer a major time difference. APAC hotline can answer the Asia Pacific customers' requests in their own time zone, thus, saving time and money for the customers.
