fleet manager, fleetmanager, fleet, manager

A Little Fleet Discipline - A Lot of Savings

Let your Fleet Management Software be the Referee

Imagine what a professional football game would be like with no officials!  Or, consider what it would be like if the referees in a basketball playoff series only called a small percentage of the fouls.  There would be chaos.  As crazy as the scenario sounds, that's similar to how we often manage our fleets.  We manually enforce the policies that we have time to enforce.  Or, we enforce the policies that are easy to enforce.  Why?  It's because we often leave the best "referee" in all of fleet on the bench - Automation!

There is no need to be selective about which fleet policies to enforce when your fleet and motor pool software is doing the work for you.  You may elect to ignore certain types of policy infractions, but there should be no need to not enforce fleet policies due to a lack of staffing, lack of time, or the perception that policy enforcement will decrease customer satisfaction.  Modern automation systems will enforce policy, identify policy infractions, and tactfully communicate with your fleet users to help curb future policy issues. 

The Solution:  Modern tools 1)  Automatically identify late returning vehicles immediately when the vehicles surpasses its return time, 2) Provide contact information for the offending driver so that fleet staff can quickly contact the driver to find out about the disposition of the returning vehicle, 3) Can send an email to an offending driver that tactfully states that the vehicle was not returned on time and has potentially affected other fleet drivers, and 4) Can report on the frequency of Late Returning vehicles.

Type of Abuse:  Trips are Not Billed to Any Account

The Issue:  Drivers using fleet vehicles often gain access to keys but fail to report the trip.  The result is that organizations lose visibility into who is using vehicles and which group is responsible for charges incurred for use of that vehicle.  In environments that are run very loosely, under-reported trips may cost the fleet thousands of dollars per month.

The Solution:  Innovative fleet software identifies gaps in reported mileage for each vehicle in the fleet.  For example, if a vehicle was last properly returned with 1,500 miles on it and the vehicle has 1,725 miles on it prior to the start of the next scheduled driver, there is “missing mileage”.  That is, someone did not report mileage.  With automated tools, this type of abuse is easy to spot and correct.  Without automation, it is almost impossible to identify this type of problem.

Type of Abuse:  Vehicles Returned Dirty or with Unreported Damage

The Issue:  Vehicles that are returned with trash in them or with damage that was unreported require attention by your fleet staff.  The vehicles must often be taken out of service unexpectedly.  To account for the vehicle down-time, you may need to carry extra inventory.

The Solution:  Your fleet software should manage the inspections of vehicles as they return to fleet.  Powerful fleet software can create an “Inspection” record for each returning vehicle.  Inspection records are neatly prioritized for fleet staff and inspection checklists help staff perform designated tasks and report damage.  The result?  Abuse of fleet vehicles is identified immediately upon return.  The fleet software can optionally tack on punitive “cleaning fees” or “repair fees” and even notify the driver’s supervisor of issues with the vehicle.  Reports can track this type of abuse over time.  The key is that the fleet software is helping staff manage all inspections and the software is providing the mechanisms for curbing the problem and reporting on how big of a problem the abuse is to the fleet.

The examples above demonstrate how software can identify actual abuse of fleet policies.  This is really the last resort though.  Modern fleet and motor pool management software is actually preventing abuse of fleet policies by enforcing fleet policy every time a driver or fleet staff interacts with the software.  The software only allows drivers to request use of vehicles for which they have privileges to use.  The software doesn’t even give the driver the opportunity to make a mistake.  Your fleet software should have dozens of rule-enforcing capabilities such as this.  Is your software your fleet referee?

Call the staff at AgileFleet.com at (408) 213-9555, or visit us on-line, to learn more about how automated policy enforcement can save you time and money.