The Four Opportunity Costs of Not Holding Your Drivers Accountable
Pt. I
The number one challenge organizations face without GPS tracking systems is a lack of driver accountability. Along with the common challenges that come along with low accountability, there are four opportunity costs your business is likely to experience.
Wasted time tracking down drivers
High overtime/labor costs
Lost revenue due to side jobs
Unable to resolve billing disputes with customers
The ability to look at a map and know where all of your vehicles and equipment are at any given time solves many problems itself. The opportunity costs of not using GPS tracking systems to hold your drivers accountable touch areas of liability, labor costs, and customer service. Read this two-part blog to find out more about these opportunity costs and how GPS tracking systems can be the answer.
Stop Wasting Time and Money Tracking Down Drivers
Without fleet visibility, exorbitant amounts of man-hours are wasted tracking down drivers. Dispatchers and office administrators make hundreds of phone calls throughout the week to drivers figuring out their estimated time of arrivals (ETAs) for customers or who is closest to the next job or a last-minute rush job. Along with this wasted time and money, there are other ways a lack of fleet visibility could be affecting your bottom line.
Vehicle and Equipment Theft
Another opportunity cost associated with a lack of fleet visibility is the loss of money to stolen vehicles and equipment. Whether it is a vehicle and/or trailer carrying expensive equipment, not tracking either makes it near impossible to recover. There are major costs associated with replacing the vehicle, trailer, and equipment.
Poor Brand Recognition
No fleet visibility can also cause poor brand recognition. Vehicles are driving billboards for your brand. When they are speeding down a road, it gives the wrong impression of your brand, as well as when they visit areas they shouldn’t be in. Unsafe driving and being recognized for the wrong reasons can absolutely cause your organization to lose future business.
GPS tracking systems help resolve these issues by giving you real-time visibility over your vehicle and equipment locations. This is one of the most common reasons organizations seek out GPS tracking systems. Simply knowing where your vehicles are at any given time cuts down those wasted man hours spent tracking
them down. This translates to dispatchers and office administrators more effectively communicating with drivers and customers. Streamlining this communication leads to improved ETAs for your customers, vendors, and partners by improving routing and getting drivers to job sites faster. GPS tracking systems provide you peace of mind knowing that you will be able to quickly recover stolen vehicles and equipment. Referencing their location with a real-time map, you will be able to alert the authorities on the exact location so they can take immediate action. You will also have the necessary data to curb poor driver and coach them towards better habits on the road.
GPS tracking systems help resolve these issues by giving you real-time visibility over your vehicle and equipment locations. This is one of the most common reasons organizations seek out GPS tracking systems. Simply knowing where your vehicles are at any given time cuts down those wasted man-hours spent tracking them down. This translates to dispatchers and office administrators more effectively communicating with drivers and customers.
ALERT AUTHORITIES TO THE EXACT LOCATION OF A STOLEN VEHICLE
GPS tracking systems provide you peace of mind knowing that you will be able to quickly recover stolen vehicles and equipment. Referencing their location with a real-time map, you will be able to alert the authorities on the exact location so they can take immediate action. You will also have the necessary data to curb poor driver and coach them towards better habits on the road.
Prevent High Overtime & Labor Costs
Whether you use electronic time cards or have the drivers complete it by hand, employees who round up their timesheets by 5, 10, or 15 minutes adds up quite a bit over time. This eventually equates to high amounts of overtime and labor costs. Without a GPS tracking system, it’s difficult to verify employees are clocking out when they should be. For example, if employees should be clocking out before they leave the last job of the day, but instead wait until they either get back to the yard or home (if they take the vehicles home) and then clock out.
GPS tracking systems allow you to look back and see if they are clocking out when and where they should be to prevent high labor costs for your organization. You can verify if they are taking long routes both to job sites and home or back to the yard. GPS tracking systems can tell you exactly how many hours of labor are being wasted so that you can more effectively control costs. GPS tracking systems can also be linked to payroll software to more quickly verify time cards.
Pt. II of The Four Opportunity Costs of Not Holding Your Drivers Accountable will cover preventing side jobs and providing proof of service.
