Recently I was asked to speak at the regional conferences for the Hoodz Franchise. It was a great honor and a wonderful opportunity to speak to the many franchise owners about device standardization in mobility and GPS Fleet Management best practices.

The Hoodz franchise is a leader in cleaning, maintenance, code compliance and fire prevention. Simply put, Hoodz is one of the go-to solutions for kitchen cleaning. These conferences are attended by Hoodz Franchise Owners from all over the United States and are broken out into three different locations at different intervals and dates.

We are a company dedicated to field service companies, and like Hoodz, Nuvo Solutions is a leader in their space as well. We lead in mobility deployments for field service companies.  We strive to help customers standardize to single platforms in mobility and help our customers decide between iPhone and Android operating systems and make an educated decision in purchasing an MDM provider.  In addition, we offer GPS Services to help you track your fleet and maintain your vehicles.  OK, Advertisement over.

One of the main points of discussion in this presentation was GPS and Fleet Management best practices, and the eight ways to get the most out of your GPS Provider without damaging your culture. Since some owners couldn’t attend and since I feel that this is a good start for any organization, I took the liberty to list these eight ways below with some footnotes.

 

1. Don’t forget about Fleet Maintenance

Often, we see companies deploy a GPS system in the field and when we ask them about their fleet management component, they look confused and bewildered.  When you first set up your GPS system, make sure you are taking the time to log the mileage of the vehicle and where they are in the cycle of maintenance.  GPS Insight’s system will run reports for you based on mileage and the reporting of the OBD2, but in order to maximize the service and use the fleet management tool it is important to create a foundation.

 

2. Recognize Good Behavior Publicly, Correct Quietly

Look, we get it, you have a system in place that shows good and bad behavior.  Nuvo Solutions stance on this is quite simple.  In order to not damage your culture and fabric of your company make sure you reward good behavior publicly and correct bad driving behavior quietly.  For more information and insight contact me at [email protected] I would love the opportunity to discuss this philosophy with you.

 

3. Keep the initial set up easy to understand with measurable goals

GPS Insight’s system, as well as others have an immense amount of knowledge and data stored in them with metrics and guides both predetermined and set by the end user.  It is great that these systems can track all of the nuances of behavior as well as engine diagnostics etcetera, but keep in mind that the first days the “less is more” philosophy goes a long way.  Take a step back, think about what you want to see on a daily basis and what can be measured at the end of the month or bi-weekly.

 

4. Set up reports that can auto generate at end or beginning of the day

Speaking of daily reports, don’t spend all day staring at a screen, unless that is your thing.  Make the system work for you.  An effective GPS system will track, monitor and can alert you when there is a problem, no need to watch dots on a map all day.

 

5. Take the time to upload your Geofence Locations and Customer sites

You get back what you put in.  Make sure that you take the time to upload your locations and places you want to monitor.  All we need is a simple .csv file of all your locations and we will upload them for you and make this system as plug and play as possible.  If your current system makes adding a geofence or a location difficult and not seamless, it’s time to start shopping for a new system.

 

6. Be Open and transparent with your employees about the GPS system that you are putting in place

If you are purchasing this system to catch wrongdoers in the act, then you are purchasing this for the wrong reasons.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but people, especially employees, want to feel valued and like an important part of the team.  It is important as the fleet manager to get buy in from your company’s employees about systems that are in place to drive revenue.

 

7. Curbing excessive idling will reflect an immediate Return on Investment

Everyone wants to know how to get the most bang for their buck, and how fast can they get it.  Luckily there are two ways to lessen the gap of getting the reward.  Number one, don’t pay too much for your service!  Number two, set up idling reports and curb that behavior immediately.  Idling a vehicle for an hour will waste approximately a half gallon of fuel.  Most fleets that we work with show an initial idle report in the HOURS per day PER vehicle!  It doesn’t take long to do the math and realize that your company is spending valuable money idling, also the environmental impacts alone by stopping this behavior are immense.

 

8. Reward your employees and empower them!

We can’t stress this one enough!  Rewarded behavior is repeated behavior.  If you don’t take the time to really assess what your main goals are in your organization as it pertains to your employees and their reward systems with the driving behavior, then you are going to have a disgruntled group that thinks you are spying on them. Empower your employees by recognizing them and helping your company achieve your goals together!

 

I have been selling GPS Systems for over ten years now, and in that time, I have seen a lot of providers come and go.  Make sure you are using a system that is simple to install and has great customer service AFTER the sell.  If you or someone you know wants more information on GPS Tracking and some of our solutions you can reach out to me personally at [email protected], or simply go to our website at www.nuvo.solutions