If you own or manage a heavy equipment rental business, delivering excellent customer service should be a top priority. But why is this so important? More importantly, how can you actually do it in your own fleet?
Keep reading to learn how heavy equipment rental companies can leverage GPS technology to deliver a better, safer customer experience for their renters that drives repeat business and additional revenue!
Why is it Important to Provide Excellent Customer Service for Heavy Equipment Rentals?
As a company that rents out heavy equipment to other businesses, being able to provide excellent customer service is essential for success. If you provide a poor customer experience, your renters won’t want to do business with you again—instead, they’ll turn to someone else who is able to provide the level of customer service they’re looking for. When your clients are leaving you for the competition, it means less revenue for your business.
Plus, if those clients that received bad customer service post negative reviews about your company online, it can make it more difficult to attract new renters in the future. Seeing as 93% of consumers say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions, it’s incredibly important that your brand doesn’t have a reputation for delivering poor customer service.
How to Provide Excellent Customer Service for Your Heavy Equipment Rentals
Now that you know why it’s so important to deliver excellent customer service, how can you actually do it? When you have so many heavy equipment rentals to keep track of, how can you streamline the process to ensure each and every customer is having a positive experience that makes them want to do business with you again? Here are a few ideas!
Leverage Geofencing to Enforce Contracts
For heavy equipment rental companies, contract enforcement is a huge concern—but geofencing can be immensely helpful. Geofencing is a technology that allows you to create a virtual perimeter or boundary around a real location. Then, whenever your tagged vehicle or asset enters or leaves that virtual boundary, you are notified. This allows you to verify that your heavy equipment rentals aren’t being taken outside of the agreed-upon area in your contract with the renter.
If your renter does take your heavy equipment outside of that rental area, you’ll have accurate, unbiased data to backup your claim. This can prevent a “he-said-she-said” situation that upsets your renters and leaves them with a bad impression of your business. By leveraging geofencing and being transparent about your use of this technology with your renters, everyone can be held more accountable and avoid back-and-forth arguments.
Implement Asset Tracking Software to Protect Your High-Value Assets from Theft
Earthmovers, flatbeds, generators, cranes, and other types of heavy equipment can be incredibly expensive, which makes them a big target for theft. If you have to replace a piece of equipment because it was stolen, it can hurt your bottom line in two ways: First, you’ll have to purchase an entirely new piece of equipment, which can be a huge blow to your budget that you weren’t anticipating. Second, until you’re able to actually purchase it and get it up and running, you won’t have that piece of equipment to rent out.
When you have fewer pieces of heavy equipment you can rent out, it means less revenue for your business. Plus, if you already had a customer that was supposed to rent a particular piece of heavy equipment that was stolen and you can’t replace it in time, you’ll be left with an unhappy customer. You can avoid this problem altogether by making strides to reduce theft in your fleet of heavy equipment rentals. But how?
One critical protection strategy for preventing heavy equipment theft is knowing where your equipment is at all times, which is possible with asset tracking. By tagging your high-value assets with GPS tracking devices, you can remotely track the asset’s location at all times. This way, you’ll be able to immediately identify if an asset is not where it is supposed to be, greatly increasing your chances of being able to recover a stolen item.
Utilize Vehicle Telematics to Give Accurate Arrival Times
If you deliver heavy equipment rentals to your customers, vehicle telematics can also help you deliver a better customer experience. Your customers are busy and need the heavy equipment you’re renting to them to complete their job. So, if you told them a piece of heavy equipment will be at their work site at a particular time and it isn’t, they won’t be very happy. Vehicle telematics can prevent this problem!
With the ability to track where your assets are at all times, you can ensure that they’re en route to the right address and monitor exactly when they’ll get there. Plus, if your delivery driver made a wrong turn or is sitting in traffic, the ETA will automatically update—allowing you to immediately call up the customer, explain the situation, and give them a more accurate arrival time. This transparency will go a long way with your customers and prevent them from sitting around waiting for a piece of heavy equipment with no idea when it will arrive.
Additionally, if a dispute does arise later, you can use the GPS tracking data from the vehicle to verify if the asset made it to the work site at the appointed time, helping to quickly resolve disputes.
Optimize Maintenance Scheduling with GPS Tracking Devices
If your customer is paying good money to rent a piece of heavy equipment from you, they won’t be very happy if it breaks down while they’re in the middle of using it. Luckily, you can use GPS tracking devices to optimize your maintenance scheduling in order to avoid this problem. Through GPS tracking, you can easily track all your fleet maintenance needs in one place and receive alerts when a particular asset is due for preventative maintenance or needs a repair.
Plus, with Rastrac’s fleet management software, you’ll even be able to keep track of things like engine hours and scheduled maintenance while your heavy equipment rentals are actually out with your customers. You can schedule alerts to be sent via text message or email when any type of maintenance is required or if any part of the heavy equipment is in distress. This way, you can ensure you’re providing your customers with heavy equipment rentals that are safe, functional, and able to operate at maximum capacity so they can get the most out of their investment.
Improve Your Customer Service Skills with Rastrac’s Fleet Management Solutions
Rastrac’s comprehensive fleet management solutions can help you develop the customer service skills you need to deliver a seamless, pleasant rental experience to your customers. The result? Happy clients who want to use your heavy equipment rentals again and again, meaning more revenue for your business!
Ready to get started? Contact a Rastrac expert so you can start providing excellent customer service today!
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