What Are Fleet Management Services?
Introduction
Purchasing fleet management services has become a popular way for businesses to handle their fleet’s management and maintenance.
It is no wonder that when outsourcing fleet management and maintenance to experienced professionals, they can help improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of fleet operations.
Many businesses that have opted to outsource fleet management services wouldn’t dream of switching to in-house fleet management and maintenance divisions.
In this glossary entry, we will outline what fleet management services are. We will also highlight the benefits of fleet management services, including liberating internal resources, providing a better customer experience, and lowering operating costs. Lastly, we will go over the downsides of fleet management services, including losing insights and employees lacking communication channels.
What are Fleet Management Services?
It takes a lot of time, dedication, and hard work to run a fleet in-house. Some companies opt to outsource fleet management and maintenance to a qualified fleet management business instead.
Professional fleet management companies offer fleet management services. These outsourced firms can increase your fleet’s productivity and income generation in addition to lowering your expenses.
Outsourcing fleet management services involves delegating fleet management and maintenance responsibilities to a third-party firm. Companies need to give up some control over their fleets in order to benefit from fleet management companies’ experience, extensive training, and knowledge.
When companies choose to purchase fleet management services, their fleet's day-to-day operations are managed by a third party firm. This can be hard for some hands-on managers to come to terms with. However, they are often won over by the superior efficiency with which fleet management firms operate their fleets.
Fleet management companies perform all sorts of work on the fleets they are responsible for, including monitoring drivers, facilitating routine maintenance, and even managing parts inventories. In addition, they often lease vehicles to the companies that own the fleets they manage.
Some fleet industry members believe that outsourcing fleet management services is a better overall option for fleet management than in-house management.
However, as with any decision, there are benefits as well as downsides to outsourcing fleet management services you should consider.
Benefits of Fleet Management Services
There are a ton of upsides to utilizing fleet management services. Many businesses are opting to outsource their fleet’s management and maintenance operations to professional third parties. The work can often be done more efficiently, cheaply, and to a higher standard by a professional service.
Here are some of the many benefits of fleet management services.
Liberate Internal Resources
One benefit of outsourcing fleet management services is that doing so liberates internal resources.
When your business offloads fleet management and maintenance responsibilities to a trusted fleet services firm, you free up your internal team to focus on business activities that provide the most value to your company.
Having more free resources allows businesses to engage in more operations that generate income and improve their firm’s productivity in general.
Provide a Better Customer Experience
Another benefit of outsourcing fleet management services is that it allows you to improve your relationships with your customers and optimize their experience.
This is made possible because of the first benefit of freeing up internal resources. You can focus on other projects knowing that experienced professionals are operating your fleet maintenance and management divisions.
Lower Operating Costs for Your Fleet
Fleet management and maintenance divisions can be quite expensive to operate in-house. Outsourcing fleet management services can greatly lower the operating costs of your fleet in a number of ways.
One way is by reducing the cost of man-hours needed to perform maintenance services by employing experienced and professional mechanics.
Another potential way is via leasing. Fleet management companies often offer fleet vehicle leasing. Instead of purchasing fleet vehicles, leasing puts the cost of ownership on the fleet management business, not you, which can save you money.
These are just a few of the ways that outsourcing fleet management services lowers operating costs. There is a potential for long-term cost savings when outsourcing.
Outsourcing fleet management services unlocks direct cost reductions that are highly valuable, which can help you grow your bottom line and improve ROI.
Downsides to Fleet Management Services
Despite its incredible upsides, there are also some downsides to fleet management services worth considering.
Outsourcing isn’t the right option for every fleet. Some companies are better off operating their fleet management and maintenance divisions in-house.
Here are some of the downsides to fleet management services.
Loss of Insights
When businesses fully outsource fleet management services, they can lose out on valuable insights. Companies that absorb fleet management into other departments, such as human resources or finance, also may lose out on discovering important insights.
When fleet management is operated in-house, team members are often exposed to more aspects of the business. A dedicated in-house fleet specialist can tap into their years of experience to generate insights that increase your fleet’s efficiency and lower its expenses.
Employees Have a Lack of Communication Channels
When companies choose to outsource fleet management services to a professional fleet management firm, drivers often get caught in between the two companies.
Drivers may feel like they lack communication channels with company team members as they deal mostly with the outsourced fleet management firm. Or, they may feel like there is too much bureaucracy when dealing with the outsourced company.
When businesses opt to run fleet management and maintenance divisions in-house, drivers always have a point of contact to address their questions and concerns. This person is the fleet manager.
A good fleet manager builds relationships with drivers in addition to local insurers, account managers, and dealerships. In-house fleet management involves more of a personal touch than outsourcing does. Drivers appreciate the longstanding relationships they build with fleet managers.
Conclusion
Remember that despite outsourcing fleet management services to qualified professionals, it is you who is ultimately responsible for your fleet at the end of the day.
Outsourcing isn’t right for every fleet, and it does have its negative aspects. However, when outsourcing works, it can be a gamechanger. Outsourcing fleet management services can supercharge fleets’ efficiency and lower their costs, along with freeing up precious company resources.
Fleet Dispatching
Dispatch software is a lifesaver when it comes to organizing your dispatch process and keeping operations streamlined. It offers a variety of features that make daily procedures so much easier, from fleet tracking to reports that help businesses make decisions. What features does dispatch software offer, and how do these features benefit fleets? We will break this down for you.
Assign and Monitor Jobs
It is easy to assign and monitor jobs with dispatch software because it uses fleet tracking. Fleet tracking allows you to assign jobs to crews in the field. If you need a lead technician for a job, it’s simple to attach that lead tech to any job you need. You can even sort jobs based on their status, whether they’re one-time, recurring, or multi-day, or based on urgency.
When workers finish jobs, they can mark the job as complete on their end. This way, you can know when each job concludes and when your technician moves on to their next task.
Easier Communication
Back and forth calls between technicians and managers are no longer a problem. With dispatch software, you simply input the job you want your technicians to address. Your technicians access it from their phones and know what to do from there. When they’re done, they can mark it complete and view their next job right away. They can track their time, update their schedules, and input notes all while on the go. Everything you need to know will be on your screen when you need to know it, no need to track the information down.
Improve Customer Service
Dispatch software can improve your business’s customer service reputation in a variety of ways. Firstly, GPS tracking allows for route optimization software, which gets your technicians to their destinations quickly and efficiently. No more late technicians making your customers wait. Furthermore, dispatch software allows you to assign technicians to customers they already know, building an improved relationship with your business. And with all of your customer information in one place, it’s easy to respond to disputes and issues in a timely and personal manner.
All of your client and order information is available in a field service CRM that details everything you need to know about your customers and the jobs you’ve done for them.
How to Get Dispatch Software
Azuga offers state-of-the-art dispatch software that your business is sure to benefit from every single day. These benefits will improve your fleet’s daily operations, boost customer service, and maximize productivity among your workers. These features and more bring your fleet to its maximum potential, allowing you to focus on making important decisions to help the business grow and thrive. Find out everything you can do with dispatch software by trying out a free demo today. You’re certain to be impressed with the improvements.
Multi-Drop Route Planning
A multi-drop route planner is a process that plans a route for a driver to make more than two deliveries in multiple locations. It uses vehicle routing software to collect and analyze thousands of data points and determine the best delivery route. This route planning software can plan, re-route, and reschedule without causing any danger to the driver, environment, or business. It considers many factors, such as the number of distribution centers, warehouses, or residential areas a driver has to visit, resource availability, and driver safety.
How Does Multi-Drop Route Planning Work?
The route optimization software tracks the vehicle while factoring in when deliveries need to arrive. Of course, a human being should ensure that everything has been planned out properly, but the process should be automatic. Both this person and the system should look at distances, travel time, and fuel consumption.
Once a route is set, the route optimization software compiles data to choose the best vehicle and driver depending on the delivery. It uses data based on the route and the client’s needs. At this point, it also considers the driver’s hours and weather conditions to determine how much time is needed. These systems need to work in real-time to ensure that managers and clients can connect with up-to-date information.
Benefits of Multi-Drop Route Planning
There are various benefits to multi-drop route planning. It maximizes productivity, keeps fuel costs low, promotes driver safety, and helps businesses stay compliant with federal driver hour regulations. Your business will save money by using its drivers effectively and not using as much fuel.
Where to Get Multi-Drop Route Planning Software
If you’re looking for this software, you don’t need to search any further! Azuga’s route optimization software allows for multiple stops. It provides the best routes based on historical data, traffic conditions, weather conditions, and machine learning that helps it create the best routes for you in real-time. See what you can do with route planning software by trying out a demo today!
Fleet Dispatching
If you manage a fleet, you probably already understand the delicate dance that is fleet dispatching. If not, you may not realize just how crucial this process is to the success of any fleet-based business.
What Is Fleet Dispatching?
Simply put, fleet dispatching is the process by which commercial fleet drivers are sent out into the field to make deliveries, service customers, and handle other business-related tasks. But it involves so much more than simply telling drivers, “you go there.” Good fleet dispatching may also involve considerations for traffic conditions, road hazards, driver skill sets, customer preferences, and onboard equipment. When done correctly, it’s a skillful juggling act that helps a business reach its daily goals. When poorly handled, it can be a disaster for all concerned.
What Is a Fleet Dispatcher?
A fleet dispatcher is a person in charge of scheduling and arranging dispatch for a commercial fleet. Small fleets may have a single dispatcher to manage all calls, while larger enterprise fleets may employ an entire team.
A fleet dispatcher must clearly understand schedules and routes, job proficiencies, fuel management, fleet maintenance, and regulations related to hours of service and other fleet compliance issues. A good fleet dispatcher knows the drivers in the fleet well and can anticipate their scheduling needs and which jobs they are most suited to handle. Fleet dispatchers must be masters of communication and have elite organizational skills.
Fleet Dispatch Software from Azuga
Fleet dispatching is as much an art as a science, and it can be overwhelming at times. The best way to support the fleet dispatchers on your team is to give them tools and technology that make the job easier. Fortunately, Azuga offers the answers to all of your fleet dispatching conundrums.
Our GPS Fleet Tracking software can keep track of all the vehicles in your fleet along with large equipment and other assets. Dispatchers can use this information to see which vehicles are nearby when a job pops up. What’s more, we offer top-notch route optimization tools to help guide drivers around road construction, accidents, and other hazards that might prevent them from getting to their destination on time. We can even help you schedule routine maintenance, promote road safety, and automatically deliver dispatch notifications to drivers in the field.
Learn about all the ways Azuga Fleet can help your commercial fleet stay productive and efficient while simplifying maintenance schedules and creating a culture of safety on the road. Schedule an Azuga demo today!