Businesses exist to make money, or, more to the point, profit. And the best way to do so (without increasing your sales) is to reduce the operating costs and increase your productivity. This is why you need a GPS tracker. A commercial GPS tracker comes with a vehicle location tracking feature that helps you track what your drivers are doing on the road, keeping you on top of every activity in your field operations. With this knowledge, you can reduce risks, enhance overall efficiency, and figure out what you need to fix or improve on to enable your field operations to make more money for you.
So, let’s dig deep to see how GPS management software can benefit your business, so that you can harness the full potential of this advanced technology.
#1 Save Money on Gas
A GPS tracking app ensures that you don’t end up paying unnecessary fuel bills. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, aggressive driving can reduce your gas mileage by 33% on highways and by 5% around town. This is where car GPS trackers will be a big boon.
For example, a car tracker gives you information about the current speed of each of your vehicles on the road and alerts you as soon as a driver goes over the speed limit. You can then communicate with the driver immediately to slow down to avoid excessive fuel usage.
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Another way in which a vehicle tracking system saves you fuel costs is by nullifying excessive idling. In the same way as the speed alert works, the fleet tracker will notify you, in real time, whenever a vehicle idles for too long. Reports say that excessive idling can cost you almost a gallon of fuel per hour and this amount can go up based on the air conditioner usage and, most importantly, the engine size. Just imagine how much money you’ll save here with a fleet GPS tracker.
#2 Save on Insurance Premiums
You must be wondering what vehicle location tracking has to do with insurance?
Well, the reality is that insurance is nothing but a gamble between you and your insurance provider. The fewer claims you make, the more money they make and the less they’ll charge you for your premiums. This means that ensuring driver safety should be your top priority, not only for the drivers, but also to save money for your business. Some insurance companies even offer savings of up to 40% if fleet safety scores reach a certain threshold.
According to a report by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the most prevalent risky driver behavior is speeding, with this behavior having a 12.8 times greater likelihood of resulting in an accident. But because a GPS tracker for a car prevents your drivers from speeding by letting you know immediately of such driving, you can ensure driver safety much more easily.
Also, if you use route optimization software that offers a vehicle location tracking feature, you’ll also be able to ensure that your drivers don’t need to text or call you while driving to ask for directions if they get lost. And, using a mobile phone while driving is one of the major causes of road accidents. We’ll talk more about fleet routing software later in this article.
The moral of the story: With a GPS tracker, you’ll be able to prove to your insurance provider, with ease, that your employees drive safely and are less likely to drive recklessly at any time as they know that they’re being watched.
The best part is that tracking devices are considered anti-theft aids as well, and insurance companies also frequently offer discounts if you use such technologies. For example, AAA insurance offers about 20% discount and USAA offers up to 33% discount. And, you know, a penny saved is a penny earned.
#3 Help Automate Check-Ins and Check-Outs
A GPS tracker not only benefits you, but is also beneficial for your drivers as it makes geofencing possible. With geofencing, the check-ins and check-outs at customer locations are automated, as you can create virtual perimeters for real-world geographic areas to automatically track and record when your drivers arrive at and depart from each destination on their routes. So geofences are triggered automatically based on your preferred geofence settings.
That means that your drivers don’t have to check in and check out manually. In this way, geofencing saves them time, improves productivity, and helps the drivers make more stops, which ultimately means more money for both the drivers and your business. And, sure, you may find that the amount of time saved at each stop is too small to consider, but if you have 100 drivers who each visit 100 locations every day, you’ll end up saving almost 55 hours daily with the auto check-in feature. Productivity wise, it’s like adding seven more drivers to your fleet at no additional cost.
Geofencing also ensures driver safety because the drivers don’t need to look at their phones when they check in at a customer location. Can you afford to ignore that?
#4 Helps You Run Data-Driven Field Operations
GPS tracking software also provides you with crucial data to help you identify bottlenecks that slow down your drivers. This will help you avoid those areas when planning routes so that your drivers can visit more customers in less time and using less gas.
Moreover, all the data collected with a telematics system provides valuable insights into how you’re using your resources which makes it easier to accurately assess driver performance. You can then use the data to provide constructive feedback and further improve productivity.
Also, when drivers know that the management team can “see” what they’re doing, they’ll also work with peace of mind. This will ultimately improve their productivity and benefit your organization as well.
Don’t Settle Down with Just a GPS Tracking App
A commercial GPS tracker is certainly a great tool to manage your field operations better, but to ensure optimum efficiency you need a route planner software which offers a vehicle location tracking feature.
A route planner will help you plan accurate and well-optimized routes in 30 seconds, while factoring in all set constraints, such as weather conditions, traffic, weight and height capacity, and left turns. In this way, your drivers or field reps won’t need to face any difficulties on the road. And, because they get efficient routes, your field reps will also always show up on time or your drivers will make on-time deliveries, and your customers will certainly love this.
But those are not the only benefits offered by a dynamic routing tool. Here’s a quick rundown of a few other benefits:
Allows for real-time re-optimization
Schedule optimization software help you re-optimize your routes as per your needs. If you plan routes manually, making any changes to an already planned route can take hours, but, with delivery scheduling software, it takes just seconds and you can make the amendments in real time.
Ensures a balanced workload
Delivery schedule software helps you balance your workload so that every driver or field rep gets the same amount of jobs, and no one is idle. You just need to add or upload the addresses into the software and adjust a few parameters, and the routing software will automatically distribute the workload equally among all your field reps. In this way, you’ll be able to keep all your employees productive and not overworked.
Makes it easy to settle customer disputes
Fleet mapping software come with eSignature technology that helps settle any disputes related to delayed or non-delivery claims made by customers. An eSignature is simply an electronic signature of each customer. Whenever a delivery is made, the customer just needs to sign on the driver’s smartphone screen and that’s it. There will no longer be hassles in maintaining and carrying paper slips and there will be zero possibility of losing the signatures, as every signature will be on file.
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Allows for territory mapping
Truck map software also offers a territory mapping feature that lets you split your service area into different territories. You can then assign a specific driver or team of drivers to each territory to ensure that the stops assigned to each driver are close together. This will save you gas, and your drivers will save time as they won’t need to drive back and forth across your service areas.
Ensure you drop off at the right location
Trucking dispatch software ensures that your drivers don’t need to circle around a building to search for the right entrance, which definitely saves both time and gas. You just need to mark the right entrance in the business optimization software when a location is visited for the first time. The next time a route is planned for that location, the software will ensure that no time is wasted as it’ll provide clear instructions about the exact drop-off location.
Moreover, vehicle routing software provides you with the ability to save the locations or destinations visited, and you can even set specific drop-off points. In this way, your customers never need to wait for you and you can serve them better and make them happier.
Address Verification
Route optimizer apps come with a geocoding feature that ensures that your drivers don’t turn up at the wrong addresses. Whenever you add an address to the software, it immediately notifies you (with a red or green LED icon) whether the address is correct or not. In addition, it provides you with auto-suggestions for incorrect ones so that you never need to spend additional time in searching for the correct addresses.
Also, the best route planners come with a dedicated ecommerce plug-in that automates the address verification process. For example, Route4Me’s ecommerce plug-in helps you connect Route4Me to your ecommerce platform (WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce) and then automates the process of transferring customer data to your multiple destination route planner. This saves you time and eliminates the risk of data entry errors.
So how do you keep your costs under control and improve productivity? Do you have any questions about vehicle location tracking and scheduling software for service companies? Please feel free to leave your queries and comments below.
Also, here are some quick questions that you should ask yourself to make sure you understood the benefits of vehicle location tracking as laid out in this article:
- Why should you use a delivery scheduling solution that comes with a vehicle location tracking capability?
- How can GPS management software help your drivers make more stops per day?
- How can vehicle location tracking help you save on fuel costs?
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