Even with the recovering economy, unpredictable fuel prices and increasing insurance costs for vehicles continue to be a challenge for thousands of U.S. businesses. Many companies have discovered that investing in the right technology can be a wise investment at this crucial time.
Whether you manage a fleet of 5 vans or hundreds of fleet vehicles, GPS fleet tracking solutions can improve your bottom line. A fleet tracking device can instantly help to improve your ROI by reducing insurance premiums, fuel and labor costs, while also improving customer service and management.
If your company doesn’t have a fleet tracking device, then you may be missing out on a valuable opportunity to improve management of your mobile worker performance, reduce expenses and increase customer satisfaction.
Fleet tracking can help you to:
1. Eliminate any Unauthorized or Personal use of Company Vehicles.
2. Catch Moonlighting Employees.
3. Improve Routing and Dispatching.
4. Reduce Fuel Costs.
5. Eliminate Unnecessary Idling.
6. Improve Driving Habits.
6. Quit Worrying About Car Theft.
7. Reduce Insurance Premiums.
Wireless fleet tracking systems can put a spotlight on a driver’s habits that consume excessive fuel and emit unnecessary pollution. The most frequent of these activities include excessive speeding, idling and sudden acceleration and stops. Tracking these types of activities is essential to achieving a fuel-efficient fleet.
Challenges & Controlling Operating Expenses with GPS Fleet Tracking:
Lack of accountability for drivers – Having a widespread fleet makes tracking worker location and activity difficult. GPS fleet tracking can make your mobile employees and contractors more accountable. Improving employee performance will not only make your customers more happy but it will make your drivers safe and at less risk of an accident.
Carlos Contreras, owner of Sunshine Landscape Services, said “my overtime costs dropped by more than 2 hours per man per day with no change in the workload. Based on these calculations, I paid for the entire first year of the system within the first 18 days.”
High Cost of Fleet Vehicle Maintenance and Insurance – Managing a large group of fleet vehicles has high operational costs. Managers have trouble keeping up with vehicle maintenance logs because they have to wait for drivers to manually submit their mileage records. But with a vehicle tracking system, electronic driving records are available 24/7 with just a click of the mouse.
A modern GPS fleet tracking system can also help you to get better resale values when it’s time to sell or trade-in vehicles.
Also, installing a fleet tracking device can instantly reduce your company’s insurance premiums and will help to immediately improve your ROI. (For more info, go to: Sunshine Landscape Sees Positive ROI in 18 Days With FieldLogix.)
Inefficient Dispatching – Stop dispatching drivers at the end of their shift across town. With fleet tracking software dispatchers can locate and assign the best vehicle and driver nearest to the customer. This improved efficiency often leads to 1-2 additional service calls per day, per technician! $100 to $200 more per day, $500 to $1,000 per week, $2,000 to $4,000 monthly or an incredible $24,000 to $48,000 per year!
Not only can this reduce employee overtime costs and improve customer service, but it can also reduce your fuel expenses and vehicle wear and tear.
Unauthorized vehicle usage and Liability– Side jobs are common in building service industries, and they can cost your company in many ways. FieldLogix was able to help a company that had a mobile employee taking jobs after hours and using the company name and materials without permission. This caused the company huge problems because when the customer called, the manager had no record of the contract. Not only did the manager look bad, but it could have easily caused lawsuit.
Reputation and Brand Protection – When a construction services company has spent decades building up its reputation, not being able to protect it is not an option. Monitoring fleet vehicles branded with the corporate logo cannot tolerate irresponsible or unsafe drivers.
Fleet tracking is very popular across many industries for several different reasons including:
HVAC & Mechanical – Increases employee accountability, reduces fuel costs, increases the number of jobs you are able to complete by identifying available, nearby service technicians, creates optimal routes and driving directions.
Municipalities – Documents all driver activities, reduces fuel expenses, eliminates unauthorized personal and after-hours use of fleet vehicles, reduces insurance costs.
Plumbing – Verifies work orders, improves customer support, lowers fuel costs, monitors and reduces excessive speeding, and can recover stolen vehicles.
Refrigeration Services -Decreases unnecessary idle time, enhances routing & dispatching, optimizes scheduling, service performance metrics, and reduces insurance costs.
Waste Management – Reduces operating expenses, improves customer service, increased the number of stops per day, and optimizes route efficiency.
Residential Services & Construction – Monitors job site activities, able to take-on new clients by quickly locating the nearest available vehicles, reduce response time, reduce fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions.
Courier Services – Improves customer service and the ability get more jobs done with real time location of fleet delivery vehicles.
Distribution & Trucking – Reduces fuel expenditures, reduces insurance expenses, ability to create and distribute last minute routing changes; ability to track after hours driving and unauthorized cargo access; records important information for tax reasons; monitors trucks usage by each state; improves driver efficiency; reduces speeding, increases driver safety, reduces fleet greenhouse gas emissions; records data to meet or exceed emissions regulations.
Electrical Contractors – Verifies service calls and work orders, improves accounting and billing accuracy, improves customer service.
Automotive – Reduces gas costs, overtime and response time, betters customer service, stops employees from taking side jobs.
Concrete and Paving – Verifies job orders, monitors materials with customizable sensors.
Field Services – Decreases unnecessary idling time, enhances dispatching, improves routing, optimizes scheduling, improves service performance metrics, and reduces insurance costs.
Fire and Security – Monitors and documents time on location, improves billing accuracy.
Limousine and Transportation – Improves customer service, identifies available vehicles quickly and navigates drivers on optimal routes to avoid traffic driving directions.