Keeping track of valuable assets and optimizing your fleet efficiency is always important. But with the holiday season quickly approaching, increased delivery volume can pose a challenge for fleet managers looking to increase fleet efficiency, improve customer service, and cut down on theft risk.
Asset tracking and asset tracking software are designed to help you meet these challenges head on. By using these tools to streamline your fleet operations for the busy holiday season, you can stay a cut above your competitors and meet the increased demand for deliveries with ease.
What is Asset Tracking?
One of the best ways to maintain or increase efficiency during the holiday season is through asset tracking. But what is asset tracking? Asset tracking refers to the use of equipment tracking software that collects data about the location of your important assets, such as delivery trucks or the high-value inventory they’re carrying.
Using a GPS equipment tracker, asset tracking software enables your fleet management team to optimize fleet operations and increase fleet efficiency. This software helps them build faster delivery routes, increase transparency with customers, and reduce the chance of theft.
Why Asset Tracking is Helpful During the Busy Holiday Season
At a time when there are more orders, shipments, and deliveries than at any other point in the year, maximizing fleet efficiency is paramount to success during the holiday season. Before the rush begins, it’s a good idea to evaluate and streamline your existing processes.
Using GPS tracking devices, you can maximize fleet efficiency, deliver improved customer service, and prevent or reduce theft of your valuable assets. The holiday season inevitably brings with it an increase in deliveries, but by employing strategies that optimize your fleet operations, you can cruise through the busy season with increased profits, happier customers, and fewer lost assets! How?
3 Ways Asset Tracking can Make Your Deliveries More Efficient
Increase Fleet Efficiency by Building Optimized Routes
Your fleet is working harder than ever during the holiday season, leaving fleet managers more concerned with optimizing fleet efficiency and fleet operations. Asset tracking software enables you to make the most of your time by providing fleet managers with the data they need to better manage their fleet.
By tagging your assets with GPS tracking devices, you can optimize your routes and minimize your drivers’ travel times. This increases the number of deliveries you can make per day, boosting profits and cutting down on fuel costs incurred by unnecessarily lengthy routes.
Another added bonus? Shorter, optimized routes will reduce the amount of mileage you put on your vehicles, which also serves to reduce maintenance costs and maintenance frequency.
Deliver Better Customer Service
Having efficient delivery processes is not just important for your business, but important for your customers as well. The holidays can be a stressful time for consumers, and no one is more frustrated than a customer that receives a holiday present later than expected or a client who doesn’t get the materials or inventory they need before the new year.
Your customers depend on you to be able to deliver their holiday shipments on time and safely. Plus, modern consumers expect to be provided with accurate information about shipping and arrival times. By tagging your assets with GPS tracking devices, you can monitor their exact location in real-time as they move along their delivery routes. This allows you to have the most accurate information about delivery and shipment times—boosting the quality of service you’re able to provide to your customers.
Customers appreciate transparency, and through the use of equipment tracking software, you can provide yours with real-time updates on the status and location of their deliveries. Customers who receive their packages early because your fleet is so efficient will be happy, and if a delivery is delayed, they will appreciate having updated, accurate information on when they can expect their delivery to arrive.
Prevent Asset Theft
With the increased delivery volume that your fleet is carrying around the holidays, they can easily become a target for thieves looking to cash in on the high-value assets they’re carrying. Protecting your inventory by using asset tracking systems can help.
By tagging your assets with a GPS equipment tracker, you’ll always know where they are in the field. Asset tracking technology allows you to employ techniques such as geofencing (or creating invisible location boundaries for real-world geographic areas) so that you will be alerted if your truck unexpectedly deviates from their route or is supposed to be parked for the night and makes an unexpected movement.
This kind of real-time reporting is crucial. According to the National Equipment Register (NER), some of the most common reasons that contribute to low rates of recovery after theft are:
- Delays in discovery or reporting of theft
- Inaccurate or non-existent records
- Confusing equipment identification systems
By streamlining your asset management strategy using asset tracking software, you can overcome these challenges in order to act quickly to recover an asset if it is stolen, then continue to track a missing asset until the police are able to recover it. This greatly improves the chances that you will be able to recover a stolen asset and can reduce the harm and costs of asset theft.
Boost Fleet Efficiency With Asset Tracking from Rastrac
When all is said and done, staying efficient even during the busiest of seasons is critical to running a successful business. With the help of asset tracking systems, you can seamlessly manage and optimize your deliveries amidst the craziness of the holidays!
Equipment tracking software makes it possible to increase the number of deliveries per day, boost profits, reduce theft, and improve customer service—all critical activities that help companies meet their holiday revenue goals.
Are you ready to start tracking and better managing your assets before the busiest time of the year is upon us? Rastrac can make this possible for your fleet. Contact us today to talk to our team of experts and get started optimizing your fleet for the holiday season!