How to become more efficient with your fleet vehicles
Scaling a delivery or mobile service based business can be very difficult, but very rewarding. There are many things to consider and worry about while scaling your business. One of those things is growing, maintaining, and managing your fleet vehicles. As you continue to grow and add more independent contractors to your crews and staff, it can be a liability risk and extra insurance costs to have them driving around in their own vehicles and at some point it becomes more feasible to buy your own fleet vehicles to reduce liability and reduce insurance costs. Fleet vehicles also have tremendous tax benefits as well. But taxes is a discussion for another post. When growing and managing your fleet vehicles there are many things to consider. Everything from purchasing the vehicle, insuring the vehicle, maintaining the vehicle, as well as safety and policy management, deliver or service route planning and optimization, etc. Focusing on mitigating your liability is not very sexy topic and doesn't do much to increase the bottom line, but it can save you big time down the road if you do it properly. Making sure your drivers are trained properly on safety policies will keep your risk of injury low and thus keep your liability low. Keeping your fleet vehicles safe and secure is also vital to keeping your risk of damage or theft low and thus keeping your liability low. Something as simple as a cracked windshield can cause issues down the road. Cracked or chipped windshields can be a visual obstruction and cause the driver to get into an accident if the obstruction is large enough. Windshields also provide structural stability to the cars entire body and a small crack or chip and compromise the entire structural integrity. We recommend partnering with local auto glass companies to get minor problems solved before they become major problems. Now that you've got the possibly liability issues sorted out, we can spend some time focusing on efficiency. Fuel can be one of the largest line items on your company's expense report and small increases or decreases can make or break your profit margin for a given time period. Proper attention to details and timely maintenance routines can also be a huge money saver over the life of a vehicle. Something as simple as on time oil changes and filter changes can increase the lifespan of your fleet vehicle. Whether you're managing just a few vehicles, or a large fleet, counting every penny and skimming costs wherever you can will turn into big savings at the end of the financial period or over the lifetime of the vehicle. You don't ever want to overlook any opportunity to optimize your fleet maintenance management or your service route management solutions. It is good practice to challenge your management team and your employees to question everything and always be looking for better options and more efficient processes. These practices will allow you to manage your fleet like a pro and keep your costs down and you productivity and your profit up..