BY TOBIAS CHEN, JOYCE KAY and ERVIN LIM

'EXCELLENT Service!' exclaimed Edmund Cheok, business support manager of Aver Asia (S) Pte Ltd, when asked for the secret of success in Aver Asia's winning of the 2008 Enterprise 50 Award. Brimming with confidence in their 24/7 service hotline and free technical support, Mr Cheok commented that their approach has helped them establish a strong foothold in the highly competitive industry of heavy machinery rental services.

Aver Asia was founded by Ang Poh Kiang and his older brother Ang Poh Thong. Both of them had years of working experience at companies specialising in heavy machinery.

Sensing the severe shortage of local companies providing machinery rental services despite the rapid growth in demand, the Ang brothers, with their life savings, started the rental business in the 1990s - with fewer than a hundred aerial platforms.

As with most start-ups, the younger Mr Ang was deeply involved with the company's development from the initial stage. He personally trained the staff in the technical aspects of the business, drawing from his prior experience in the heavy machinery sector, and would work alongside his employees in the repair and maintenance of the machines.

Even during the Chinese New Year period when most private companies would close for business, Mr Ang would be on standby with his service team to answer technical support calls.

'He is a really hardworking boss - always among the first few to arrive in the morning and the last to leave,' said Mr Cheok. 'He motivates us to work harder with his actions, not words.'

The business grew steadily over the years and in 2005, Mr Ang foresaw the growth potential in the oil and gas industry and prepared his company for it by purchasing machinery catered specifically to the industry. As a result, Aver Asia was able to ride atop the industry's boom and secure an edge over its competitors.

In 2007, Aver Asia enjoyed revenues of $18 million and managed to gain a sizable market share, which placed it among the top few heavy machinery rental houses in Singapore. It now owns an impressive fleet of over a thousand machines for a wide range of uses.

Traditionally, rental houses would offer a technical helpdesk and on-site repair services during office hours and chargeable service calls after office hours. Aver Asia went a step further by providing a 24-hour technical hotline and a round-the-clock emergency response team for on-site repair and servicing, free of charge.

'These measures are costly but necessary. We believe that customers should not have to wait until the next working day to have their queries answered. Prompt response to service calls is important too - every second counts for our clients' businesses,' noted Mr Cheok.

While providing prompt repair services to customers is important, ensuring a high quality of machines supplied is equally important, as every break-down will result in a loss of machine hours which extends the duration of the project and increases costs for the clients.

So, apart from ensuring that a service team is on standby around the clock, Aver Asia has taken measures to ensure that the machines are in good working condition. Much emphasis has been placed on maintenance of the machines and the age of the machines, which includes scissors-lifts, aerial platforms, and sand-blasting machines.

A quick look around the workshop area at Aver Asia's Tuas site showed the technical staff diligently repairing some of the machines that had just been returned. Mr Cheok explained that maintenance typically takes up a large amount of the technical staff's time. This is to ensure that the machines the next customer receives will always be of the good quality Aver Asia promises them. Apart from maintenance, Aver Asia also ensures that 70 per cent of the machines in their inventory are new (an average of three years old). These measures minimise the chances of machine break-down and help to reinforce Aver Asia's impressive record of reliability.

The approach does not go unnoticed - Aver Asia enjoys a high percentage of repeat customers, and some of whom insist on Aver Asia's services even for operations in far-flung countries such as Russia, Scotland and Brazil.

The Ang brothers know all employees by their first names, and enjoy a close working relationship with them. Amid the current economic turmoil when most companies make the knee-jerk action to retrench employees to cut costs, Aver Asia has no plans to retrench any employee.

'We have decreased the number of overtime hours, but we are neither retrenching nor decreasing salaries,' said Mr Cheok. 'Mr Ang made that clear right at the start of the economic downturn, and it was a great morale booster.'

All these measures have helped to cultivate employee morale, and have encouraged staff to be reciprocally loyal to the company, and consequently, to be efficient and productive. This is clearly seen in the high service standard that Aver Asia staff sets for the rest of the industry.

So what is next? Aver Asia is setting its sights abroad, and aims to set up various regional offices in the neighbouring countries and establish itself as a regional market leader within the next decade.

The writers are students of the NUS Business School

This article was first published in The Business Times.