The pandemic created a stressful work environment, affecting professionals across industries, and the transportation and logistics business is no exception. These industries have to deliver efficient services and achieve maximum customer satisfaction continuously.
However, the job of fleet managers is pretty challenging and daunting as they have to manage all operations, processes, vehicles, drivers, expenses, and so much more. They are majorly involved in overlooking time-consuming tasks that hardly influence the company’s bottom line.
There’s more to it; they also have to handle the senior decision-makers pressure to cut operational costs as much as possible and still gain efficiency. As the fuel prices are soaring, imagine the stress fleet managers are going through!
And it’s not just about fuel expenses; fleet managers stress and get frustrated doing everything manually, which is always erroneous. And again, they have to spend time correcting those errors.
Nevertheless, many fleet organisations are able to get rid of unnecessary stress with the help of a telematics solution. Vehicle telematics ensures more efficient workflows and better performance across the board. From route optimisation and driving behaviour to predictive maintenance and vehicle usage, telematics provides detailed information to fleet managers and ensures effective fleet management.
Here’s how telematics can help reduce the work stress of fleet managers.
Reduce Time Spent on Admin Tasks
Fleet managers spend a lot of time on admin tasks. Not to forget admin tasks such as invoicing, sending quotes, managing cash inflow, etc., take up more than 2 hours daily of fleet managers’ work schedules. Many fleet companies still rely on paper-based invoicing, which adds to the complexity of admin tasks. Broadly, all these are non-revenue generating activities, which results in lower productivity.
Fleet telematics systems can help fleet managers adopt a digitised approach and automate tasks such as dispatching drivers, routing and scheduling, invoicing based on vehicle usage and trips, etc. Fleet managers don’t have to dig into piles of papers as telematics systems provide data on all fleet activities, speeding up billing and invoicing processes and saving valuable time.
Improve Safety of Fleets
Uncertainties can crop up anytime on the road and can put the vehicle as well as the driver’s life at risk. Around 94% of vehicle crashes are due to human error. Here, both the drivers and fleet managers are under stress to ensure the safety of vehicles and other road users. Earlier, there was no way fleet managers could track the driving skills of drivers, but with telematics, they can monitor driving behaviour and improve the safety and security of their business.
Vehicle telematics notifies and provides real-time information on excessive speeding, sharp turns, and harsh speeding to fleet managers. This way, fleet managers can get hold of unsafe driving behaviour before it results in a casualty. They can engage drivers in extra training sessions and ensure they meet all safety standards. When common safety standards are established, it removes any dismay in employee-management relationships. Drivers and fleet managers can work without any stress, increasing employee satisfaction and ensuring smooth operations.
Moreover, you can communicate easily with drivers regarding their location, ETAs, order status, etc. You get all of this data through a telematics system. Ultimately, there is less miscommunication, and the team’s dependence on mobile phones is significantly reduced.
Easy Payroll Management
Fleet businesses determine the payroll of their workers through timesheets. Yet again, manual calculating payroll leads to inaccuracies. A fleet telematics system ensures accurate records of working hours, matching up timesheets and job tickets. Fleet managers can keep a tab on whether drivers are working an appropriate number of hours and eliminate the chances of overdue or distorted payments.
Telematics monitors the start time and end time of the engine. It also tells you about shutoff and startup times to precisely know the time spent during the breaks or unauthorised trips. With the geofence feature, fleet businesses can set a virtual fence around the workshop and get notifications when a vehicle enters or leaves the workshop to track drivers’ activities. An electronic timesheet can reduce admin costs and increase business efficiency.
Reduce Operating Costs
Fleet managers have to manage two significant operating expenses: fuel and maintenance expenses. They need to track fuel usage and consumption to determine the amount of money spent on fuel accurately. Vehicle telematics systems can provide all data on fuel consumption to evaluate fuel wastage. For example, harsh driving behaviour and excessive idle time result in fuel wastage. Monitoring these details can help fleet managers to cut down on fuel costs.
Similarly, telematics offers predictive maintenance alerts by analysing vehicle usage. Poorly maintained vehicles can cause unexpected breakdowns, which are expensive to repair. Further, staying up-to-date with each vehicle’s maintenance schedule is pretty daunting, and high chances fleet managers might even forget. With automated maintenance schedules, you run well-maintained vehicles that are fuel-efficient, saving maintenance and fuel costs.
Conclusion
As fleet managers have to manage multiple tasks simultaneously, they can have sleepless nights to ensure efficient services are delivered to customers. Fleet telematics solutions can reduce managers’ massive work burden and stress, helping them focus on business scalability and growth.