Inside TAC: Where Technical Assistance Leaders Compare What Works

When technical assistance leaders from Ford, Toyota, Kia and Hyundai sat together at MAPconnected’s Service & Warranty Lifecycle Summit, the scale of the conversation was striking. Introducing the panel;

“40% of NA vehicle sales are represented by this panel at the Summit today.”

Dan Dobbs, Advantage Technical

These were people working through many of the same difficult questions, supporting different brands. How do you help a technician diagnose a vehicle you cannot see or touch? How do you get useful information into a case from the beginning? And where can AI genuinely help without replacing the judgment a complex repair demands?

That is why MAPconnected’s Technical Assistance Centers Leadership Xchange Group matters.

The Group That Started Something Bigger

TAC was MAPconnected’s first Leadership Xchange Group. Beginning in August 2025, it brought technical-assistance leaders together to compare experiences and examine the operational challenges behind dealer support. Its success helped establish the foundation for the additional groups launched in January 2026. The group includes TAC leaders from Ford Motor Company, Hyundai Motor America, Hyundai Canada, Kia America and Toyota Motor North America, with Winnebago and Rotobec joining this year.

Mike Roberts, President of MR Insights and former Global Warranty Strategy Manager at Ford Motor Company, has helped guide that exchange engagement. His experience connects the immediate challenge of getting a vehicle repaired with the wider implications for warranty, quality and customer confidence.

For a technical-assistance leader, membership creates a place to bring the questions your team is already trying to answer. Is a case waiting because information is missing, capacity is stretched or the escalation process is unclear? Comparing how peers approach these situations can help you examine your own process with a better understanding of the alternatives.

Building on earlier virtual meetups, the August meeting introduced the TAC Metrics Framework: a structured approach to benchmarking phone and digital efficiency, business impact and satisfaction across OEM TAC operations. Members also discussed shared definitions for key performance indicators and measures of resolution quality, escalation trends, dealer support effectiveness and overall TAC performance.

Taking the Conversation Into the Summit

The October Summit gave that year-round collaboration room to develop face to face.

On October 20, Empowering Dealers Through Technical Field Support brought TAC and Field Services Connected Data perspectives together. On October 21, the TAC working program explored when a technical-assistance case becomes a quality issue, including how information moves between TAC, Quality, Engineering and Field teams.

The October 21 main stage panel, Getting the Right Support to the Dealer: The Evolution of Technical Assistance, brought together:

• Shane Schmitt, Director Technical Hotline, Ford Motor Company
• Russell Suzuki, Manager Field Technical Services, Toyota Motor North America
• David Brisky, Senior Techline Communications Manager, Kia America
• Miles Thompson, Senior Manager Advanced Diagnostics, Hyundai Motor America

Facilitator: Dan Dobbs, Solutions Architect, Vehicle Services Group, Advantage Technical

Better Support Starts With Better Connections

The panel made the practical stakes clear. Technical teams are supporting increasingly complex vehicles while relying on information gathered by someone else. Incomplete case details can mean more questions, more waiting and a longer repair.

AI offers useful possibilities, particularly for repetitive work and finding information. But the discussion also stressed the effort needed to train systems and validate their answers. Faster access to an answer is only valuable if that answer helps resolve the problem.

The opportunity for members is to stay involved as these approaches develop. Instead of taking away a single Summit insight, leaders can return to a peer community to discuss what they are trying, where they are encountering difficulties and which questions deserve attention next.

They also give substance to MAPconnected’s 2037 future vision. Before we imagine a seamlessly connected service journey, we need to understand how knowledge moves today, where it stops and who needs it next.

Your team does not have to work through every technical-support challenge in isolation. MAPconnected’s TAC Leadership Xchange Group brings leaders together to compare approaches, question assumptions and learn from the experience of their peers throughout the year.

If you lead technical assistance or dealer support, bring your challenges into the conversation. The group is open to new members in 2027 with first meetup planned for February.