Call’em As You Need’em: Couple opens national roadside service

MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Maybe between now and Christmas, Alvis and Dawn Violo might be able to catch a little shuteye. Then again, maybe not.

For just over a year, the Mississauga, Ont.-based couple has been running an emergency call centre for truckers. With almost no fanfare, they opened for business last November and since that time, the company — Emergency Road Services of Canada — has fielded more than 1,000 calls from truckers in distress. The calls come 24/7.

“You’re going to laugh,” Alvis says, “but a lot of them came at 2:00 a.m. to the phone that’s beside our bed.”

Business has been so brisk that as of Dec. 1., ERS of Canada opened a sparkling new call centre. This means that finally, there’ll be others on hand to field the calls for help.

ERS of Canada is like the CAA, except there’s no membership dues and you don’t have to register in advance. Basically, it’s a one-stop-call service for truckers who need roadside help.

Alvis learned about the truck-maintenance business at his father’s side, at the three-decade-old family-owned Malton Truck & Trailer Repair in Mississauga. In 2006, he and Dawn did some research into the various roadside-assistance services available in the U.S. and decided Canadian truckers would benefit from a similar service.

The Violos have secured 2,200 vendors whom
they can summon on a moment’s notice

They spent a year building ERS of Canada. Much of that involved creating a cross-Canadian network of about 2,200 vendors whom the Violos can summon on a moment’s notice. They have tow-operators, tire-repair facilities, mobile repair shops, even environmental cleanup people in the data base, which stretches the height and breadth of Canada.

“I don’t know how she [Dawn] did it,” says Alvis, “but she has made contacts all over the place.

(It didn’t hurt, he adds, that they found and hired a new vice president in the person of Allan Lusk, who brought almost 30 years of experience to the job.)

Recently, Dawn took a call from a trucker broken down in Milk River, Alta. As Alvis tells TodaysTrucking.com, “The driver says ‘you’ll probably have to get somebody in from Lethbridge,’ but Dawn told him ‘no, we have somebody for you right in Milk River.’

All the vendors are pre-qualified and their rates are listed with the Violos, so there will be no surprise bills for the broken-down truckers after the repairs get taken care of. The vendors are also required to submit their invoices immediately after doing the job. Alvis Violo audits every invoice.

And the cost? $48 a call. For that, ERS of Canada contacts all the services you need to get back on the road again. It could take an ERS dispatcher one phone call to fix things up or it might require 100. Earlier this month one call involved organizing a diesel-fuel cleanup near Niagara Falls. Still the client trucker at the centre of it only had to pay $48 for ERS of Canada’s coordinating services.

After the new website’s operational, says Violo, there will be four ways to contact ERS: via email; phone (1-877-ERS-CANADA), fax or online (see link below). And online, customers will be able to track their requests and the results immediately.

Violo also says he tries to get help to the distressed trucker within an hour of the first call. And so far, after 1,000 or so calls, ERS is batting 1000.

“It’s all about getting somebody there fast. And not letting our customers get ripped off.”

Truck fleets will have slightly faster service if they pre-register with the ERS of Canada, he said, because then, when they call in the middle of the night to report a broken axle or whatever, the dispatcher won’t have to ask for identifying details and credit-card numbers. But it’s not a must. First time callers are welcome.

Their new call centre will deliver service in both official languages and if need be, the Violos will find dispatchers who speak whatever languages are required. “If our customers need Punjabi, we can find somebody,” he says.

Meantime, ERS of Canada CEO Alvis and President Dawn will be looking forward to at least one good night’s sleep while they let their new staffers do the call answering.