10 Ways Fleet Tracking Helps Small Businesses Become More Efficient
Fleet tracking makes businesses more efficient overall, which is made possible only by the data delivered by the software. Business owners can better direct their attention to matters that need to be solved if they can figure out where exactly the problem lies. Not only does fleet tracking pinpoint the performance deficiencies and inadequacies, but it also gives you an idea about the things you’re doing right so you can try and replicate those strategies more often. But most of all, it brings the cost of running your transport down, which will inevitably leave more money for you to expand your startup and make it more profitable.
Under the following headers, we have discussed 10 of the most important ways small businesses benefit from fleet tracking. This will give you a solid idea of what fleet tracking can mean for your small business and how your investment will repay you monetarily.
Better Productivity
People do their best work under supervision, plus fleet managers can give better orders and make more informed decisions if they know everyone. The productivity boost given by fleet tracking is significant, and it helps businesses bring in more profits. With fleet tracking in the equation, there will be no slacking off and substandard performance; you’ll have access to performance data that will help you make informed business decisions. Usually, drivers lack motivation because the management is disconnected from what goes down on the road; fleet tracking changes that.
Improving Efficiency
Besides improving the bar for your workers, fleet management will also allow you to get more work done with the same level of effort. Effort gets wasted simply due to poor management of resources such as time. For instance, if you have created an inefficient schedule for your drivers, you’ll lose time doing stuff that is not a priority. Fleet management improves how you prioritize things in your business and thus get to do more every day within the same time limits and apply the same effort level. Simply through better management, fleet tracking allows you to get better results from your small business, efficiency-wise.
Reducing Business Costs
The transportation segment probably covers the major portion of the costs for running your business. Transport is expensive because you can lose a significant sum to fuel wastage, poor route planning, and inefficient scheduling. These drains may not seem like much at a given moment, but the sum lost will be staggering over time. Any way to bring down the costs of running your operations should be welcome in such a challenging economy, and fleet tracking is just that. The system allows you to make better decisions based on the information you have access to and thus helps you make your business less costly, saving funds for growth.
Minimizing Wastefulness
Fuel wastage is one of the most important concerns for fleet owners, and the same can also be said for time. Idling, poor route planning, maintenance issues, and assorted problems can often lead to fuel wastage. And as for time, poor planning comes into play here as well. Through their enhanced monitoring abilities and timely notifications, Fleet tracking systems keep fleet managers informed of such wastefulness. With the fleet data laid out in front of them, fleet managers can make informed decisions in this regard, allowing your small business to cut down on the wastage of resources. This will release funds to be used in making your business better.
Reducing The Risk Of Accident Liability
Accident liability is a disaster. There is no way to tone down the enormity of this problem. If one of your drivers, through their negligence, cause a car crash, then you too will be held liable for the damages. If the other party decides to sue you for compensation, this can drain at least thousands of dollars from your business funds. Not to mention the expenses to get your vehicle repaired and to offer medical treatment to your driver. The losses would be immense.
Since commercial drivers are usually in a rush to meet deadlines and to complete all the milestones, the possibility of getting involved in an accident is there. Just because there is a schedule does not mean that your drivers should be engaged in unsafe driving. Fleet tracking apps let you control how they drive by alerting you of anything that goes against road safety so that you can ask your driver to mend their ways immediately.
This way, you can preempt major disasters on the road and save a ton of money too.
Time Conservation
Time, as we mentioned earlier, is a resource often wasted due to poor management. Conserving time is the same as conserving money for your business. Transportation businesses usually have strict deadlines to meet and lots of milestones to cover, but even the slightest mismanagement here can cause severe loss in terms of time. As a fleet manager, it is your job to assign milestones based on the distance and time required to complete the said milestone. GPS tracking system can help you do just that, allowing you to better manage time for day-to-day operations and even spare some for more work.
Travel Distance Minimized
Another drain for businesses is when drivers travel longer distances than they need to for a given milestone. Experience and intuition don’t always turn out to be the best guides on the road. A single wrong turn can make things difficult for your driver. It is impossible to know which route to opt for because so many variables affect the traffic flow. No matter how experienced they are with their job, your drivers can’t always make the smartest decision when it comes to route selection. This is where fleet tracking systems become relevant yet again.
The route optimization feature allows these systems to plot the most suitable route for every travel based on traffic density, distance, number of turns, etc.
Improves Communication
The most important aspect of communication in a business environment is to know when to reach out and when to give other professionals the space they need to do their work. You can’t constantly bug your drivers for updates, and you can’t stay completely distant from the whole thing. In both cases, the overall productivity of your small business will fall. Fleet tracking optimizes your need to communicate by bridging the gap between the fleet managers and the drivers. When the fleet managers can observe where their drivers are at any given instant, they won’t have to annoy them constantly and only communicate when the need is dire.
Performance Data Available To Help Improve Business Protocol
Data is the lifeline of any business – it shows where you’re performing well and where you’re lagging behind expectations. You can make the necessary amends once you know which areas need improvement. Performance data is a statement on how well or poorly your workers are performing, and there is no way for them to refute your findings – machines don’t lie. Manual log entries are usually impossible to verify and can be very misleading. Fleet tracking systems allow you to avoid manual data entries altogether and instead give you all the information you need with just a tap/click.
Better Management
Lastly, and most importantly, fleet tracking systems enable better management on your part. A series of good decisions may be enough to set you on the course of success for your small business. Based on the information shared by your GPS tracking system, you’ll be in a much better position to make decisions that matter, and your business will move forward as a result.
What To Look For In An Ideal Fleet Tracking System
Now we move our discussion to what an ideal fleet tracking system should look like. You understand just how much of an impact fleet tracking systems can make for a small business and how your investment will reward you monetarily, but there is a bit more to it than that. All of the features described above are true only for a premium-level product. Unfortunately, with the rise in the demand for fleet tracking in the market, many inadequate products have also made their way on the internet. You need to do your research so that you can only buy a capable product like Fleetr for your small business.
Here are some of the many features that set apart a premium-grade product like Fleetr from the competition:
Real-Time Location Tracking
This is the most important of all features: real-time location tracking allows you to envision the actual movements of your fleet vehicles, as they happen, on your screen. Live transmission would be a perfect analogy to this. In contrast, defective products only let you see updates on location after fixed intervals.
Fleetr features real-time location tracking and thus lets you give informed orders.
On-Road Behavior Monitoring
Your drivers’ behavior on the road will reflect on your company’s policy, and if they crash the company vehicle, you’ll also be dragged into the mess. You can preempt this by monitoring their driving behavior and contacting them immediately if you notice something unprofessional or unsafe, i.e., speeding, traffic law violation, etc.
Timely Alerts & Notifications
Alerts are an important feature which most people overlook. Firstly, your fleet tracking app should be compatible with both PCs and mobile phones, and secondly, you should have the option to configure the alerts and notification settings on the phone app. This way, even when you’re not actively using the app, you’ll still be informed of any event worthy of your attention.
Location History
This feature would come in handy if you missed the live stream of location data. Perhaps you were busy handling other important business stuff but fret not. You can always review the location history of your fleet vehicles later on. This will inform you about the course taken by your fleet vehicles, all the stops made, and assorted details so you can ascertain that your company cars were not used for anything but company work.
Automated Performance Records
Lastly, your fleet tracking software should be able to give you complete records of your drivers’ performance. Ideally, you should not rely on manually generated records because those are hard to verify and almost useless in practical terms. Fleet tracking data is more detailed, genuine, and concise – perfect for shaping your business policy.
Fleetr Is The Perfect Fleet Tracking Solution For Small Businesses
Fleetr is a premium choice for small businesses, and it comes with an affordable price tag – the perfect combination. You will get all the features you need in this product and get to use a fleet tracking system on your own terms. Usually, with fleet management systems, there are binding contracts, hidden fees, installation charges, device dues, and similar issues to deal with. But not with Fleetr, because our product is meant to deliver performance, and that’s all we aim for – minus all the troubles for clients in all stages of acquiring and using their fleet management system.
You can use Fleetr for as many vehicles as you please and for as long as you want to – no contract is going to tell you what to do. The only thing that has kept our clients from quitting is our service excellence, nothing else; this is how much confident we are about the level of excellence we deliver. Over 20,000 small business owners have already benefited from our system and use our product to manage their fleets better. Join them and take your startup to new heights!
Call us today, and we’ll inform you about the rest.
