The presence of data affects our personal decisions daily. For instance, you’re likely to see someone in Florida leaving the house in the summer with an umbrella. Facts and statistics tell us that the Sunshine State isn’t always so sunny—particularly from June through August. As a result, Floridians have learned to prepare and adapt to these wet weather conditions. In the same way, patterns derived from data can influence us personally, they can also influence us professionally. One simple way field service organizations are building and reporting on data for that purpose is with fleet monitoring software.
As one CEO of a popular finance-based technology platform put it, “consumers and producers have access to more information than ever before.” In a contributed story for Inc.com, that CEO wrote extensively about ways to use data to improve your business. But before you can use that data, there are two main aspects of aggregation that you must explore. First, is the data both valid and free of errors? And secondly, how do you plan on reporting the data? Luckily for you, fleet monitoring software can check the boxes on both fronts.
Fleet monitoring software can give managers access to a wide range of data related to vehicle and driver behaviors. This instantaneous exchange of information between a vehicle and the office is known as fleet telematics. Without automation, record-keeping can be a tedious process that is ripe for errors. Take, for example, the reporting of fuel consumption for your fleet. Your company may still be relying on mileage logs and manually recorded entries from drivers. These notes may include miles traveled for the day, gallons of gas added, and an indicator of remaining fuel. If you’re using this method, you may even have to manually calculate miles-per-gallon figures for reporting purposes. Between sloppy handwriting, lost papers, and incomplete information, inaccuracies may be more common than you’d expect.
On the contrary, the introduction of fleet monitoring software signals a way to mitigate or remove those risks. The software is cloud-based, which means you won’t have to worry about any lost or damaged papers. And most fleet monitoring software can collect information around driving distance, fuel consumption, and route taken to make the tracking of these metrics easy. Best of all, the automated system uses GPS tracking, which means you can feel confident that the data is valid.
Beyond fuel tanks, there are other key components of a fleet vehicle that you can better manage through data collection. Your preventive maintenance program could see a boost by harnessing the power of fleet monitoring software. By using the software to record milestones like last oil change or tire rotation, you can receive alerts when maintenance is due. In turn, this could keep your vehicles in better condition—for longer—and may even keep your employees safer. Another way to use fleet monitoring software to promote employee safety is by monitoring driving habits. In addition to recreating driver routes to jobs, the software can also track how fast they drove getting there.
Once you have the data, and you know you can trust it, you may be wondering how to use it. Fortunately, one of the most valuable advantages of using fleet monitoring software is the reporting functionality. Not only does automation make reporting easy, but the reports available to you can cover a wide range of subjects. As an example, consider how fleet monitoring software tracks those driver behaviors and patterns. Based on that data, you can easily build a driver scorecard with areas of opportunity for each employee. Among others, these focus areas may include route or speed limit compliance. You may even want to measure driver performance by comparing these readily accessible reports against benchmarks set for your organization. It may also be beneficial to use this data as a coaching tool, reviewing the data with your drivers in one-on-one discussions.
Whether your goal is to improve driver safety, better control costs, or both, the reports available with fleet monitoring software could help. As part of the solution, we provide to field service management organizations, EnSight+ has fully customizable fleet monitoring software. Request a live demo today to see how our platform can help your business.
All monitored by you, in real time. Are you ready to take control?