Fleet Tracking ROI - Plan Your Deployment Well For It

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When you deploy GPS vehicle tracking, the most relevant question is about ROI.

Telematics has a wide-ranging impact on your fleet operations, from maintenance to fuel efficiency, that can improve both safety and savings. For fleet managers, it is important to identify your most pressing areas of concern (i.e., reduced maintenance costs, reducing idling, improving safe driving and safety in general) and then evaluate options that can best deliver the improved outcomes for your fleet.

While deploying fleet telematics, ensure there is coordination

There are many things telematics can do. However, it helps to assess the priority issues you want to solve. To do that, you have to discuss various operational aspects with drivers, mechanics, customer service personnel, technical staff, payroll manager, and business partner(s). This approach will yield more effective solutions than assuming that technology by itself will fix everything.

To improve customer service, in addition to more efficient dispatching and route optimization, you could need geofencing around the worksite. A monthly reward for drivers accomplishing more customer visits in a day can reinforce productivity. You should not only deploy GPS tracking, but also ensure there are policies in place, training inputs available, and that all the information is being analyzed and acted upon.

As a Fleet Manager, you are not just looking at providers of GPS tracking devices. You are also looking for a company that has a versatile solution and who will partner with you to deploy it.

Assessing a fleet solution specialist

There is a considerable amount of telematics technology out there. It’s important to carefully identify a suitable solution provider for GPS vehicle tracking and assess the various fleet management benefits based on it.

There is a variety of possible benefits. As an example, Azuga customers report an average reduction of 57% in citations for traffic violations. Moreover, their drivers are taking 28% less time to reach customers!

Those are averages and specific results will depend on your own fleet operations. This will be impacted by your business’s specific characteristics - the kind of routes, the average number of stops, the skill level of your employees, the urgency of responding to customers, and so on. Your deliveries can get done faster with good tracking.

For your fleet to operate efficiently, the GPS tracking provider's knowledge of your kind of business will matter. Their customer training will also make a big difference to what your business can get from their GPS tracking solution. They should also be able to take you successfully to the next level of technology because all the time, new applications are being integrated into a fleet management suite.

Assessing the fleet management solution

You will need to get a few people in your business, including some of the regular users, to understand how the solution is going to be deployed, and also the expectations from it.

Here are some of the things you should surely check on:

  1. Is the product strong in your areas of priority? How well is it integrated with other useful third-party applications?
  2. How is the provider ranked for customer support vis-a-vis their competition?
  3. Is working with the user interface going to be too challenging for your drivers or other staff? How easy is it to generate the reports you want to look at?

As a test of reliability, you could install the plug-and-play device in a couple of vehicles for a month or two. This will let you know the actual performance of the device's hardware and give you an idea of whether the promised benefits can be practically realized. 

This kind of planning and trial exercise goes a long way to ensure the full success of your deployment.

Assurance of Continuity

You expect not only to remain in business but to be growing as well. Which means a larger fleet in the coming years. The fleet management solution you choose will have to scale up. The provider's customer support has to be there for you and keep pace. You have to be able to discuss with your solution provider if you have any new kind of requirement. These are long-term considerations but have to be thought of in the present.

The best ROI decisions are made when you plan your deployment with clearly defined expectations and choose your GPS tracking provider on the basis of your own key business criteria.