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9 Motor Pool Best Practices

Whether you have a fleet of 5 or 50 vehicles in your motorpool business, managing your vehicles is no small feat. To make your motorpool business a success, it’s crucial that you effectively run your business and get the most out of your fleet. We’ve put together 9 motor pool best practices to help you do just that. Let’s explore them now.

1. Lock Down Your Processes

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The number one way to get the best out of your motor pool business is to make it as lean as possible. And as much as it’s important to meet your customers’ needs, a priority for all businesses, no matter the industry, is to be profitable. This is vital for the current success and future performance of your business.

And to do this, you need to make sure that your processes are clear, logical and well-implemented. These should be well-documented and communicated with your whole team to ensure that everyone is aware and familiar with your company’s day to day running. Doing this will ensure that less mistakes are made and delays avoided.

2. Automate, Automate, Automate!

Technology is a vital part of any business nowadays, and especially automation. Not only does this assist in the streamlining of your processes, but can save your business time, resources and money. You can automate motorpool management easily with the right software, like ridecell.com and this opens up a whole new world of possibilities for your business. From automating your fleet’s maintenance schedules to driver onboarding, save yourself the trouble of doing a range of admin tasks.

Automating your management activities offer many benefits, including:

• Saving your business money and time
• Offering a better and more efficient service to your customers
• Enabling your team to work better together
• Boost productivity and efficiency

3. Update Your Fleet When Needed

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Your customers’ needs and wants are constantly shifting as social attitudes and other external factors such as economic conditions change too. This means that your fleet may need to adapt to any changes in your marketplace too. So whether you lease or outright purchase your vehicles, it’s worth keeping in mind that they won’t necessarily be permanent fixtures in your business.

It’s also important to consider that as your business grows and pursues different opportunities and goals, your clientele may inevitably change too, and give rise to the need for new vehicles.

4. Continuously Maintain Your Fleet

This is a vital one: maintaining your fleet. As the biggest and most valuable asset in your business, it deserves your time and budget as it can hugely affect your business’ success. So make sure that you have the right program or personnel in place to keep track of your fleet’s health and efficiently deal with any problems that arise. As we mentioned before, technology allows fleet managers to not just be reactive to any damages or malfunctions that arise on the road, but proactively diagnose these things before they cause your business problems. Regularly keeping up with maintenance schedules must be a priority to avoid lapses in productivity for your business.

5. Set Goals for Your Business

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Every business sets goals, and this is no different for motor pool businesses. Even if you have a good system that works for you, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim higher in the future! A good goal keeps your business trajectory pointed upwards and team motivated to continuous improvement and growth.

Remember, your goals need to be achievable, realistic and measurable so that you can use what you learn to help your business reach higher heights.

6. Collect Fleet Data

Your fleet produces a lot of data, and within this data lies a number of new opportunities to improve your fleet and your motor pool services. So if you aren’t collecting this data somehow, you need to start! Whether you choose to automate elements of your service or record customer feedback continuously, the more data you’re able to collect, the better.

7. And Use It Smartly!

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If you aren’t committed to using the data you collect for your business, then you’ll be wasting key time and resources. Using your data smartly is the key to optimizing your operations and maximizing productivity rates. This can be analyzed and used to identify areas of improvement and new opportunities, unlocking new levels of efficiency for your business. To effectively do this, you might need to outsource a data specialist who can take a look at your numbers and help you make sense of them, or invest in the right data analytics software that can do this job for you.

8. Get (And Stay) Organized to Get The Most Out of Your Fleet

We talked about processes once before, but simply having the right processes and systems in place won’t guarantee you efficiency and productivity. These processes must be implemented correctly in order to bring you success. So this means hiring the right people, giving your team the training they need to effectively execute your way of doing things, and staying organized. Whether it’s through thorough training or documentation, figuring out what organization system works for you can really swing things in your favor as you’ll be able to keep on top of driver schedules and maintain your fleet with much more ease.

9. Communicate With Your Audience

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Marketing is crucial for any business, and when you’re running a motor pool organization, it’s not just about reaching out to new customers. Your communications efforts must be present throughout the customer’s whole journey with you, and nurturing this relationship provides a key opportunity to drive engagement and customer loyalty.

Whether you develop an app or create an email list where you can contact your customers, having a line of communication open with them is important so that you can nurture that all-important relationship. It’s even better if this communication is two-way. Giving them the chance to get in touch with you means that you can better serve their needs and solve any issues that may arise quickly and efficiently.

These best practices will help you to ensure you’re getting the best out of your business, and offer some support in the running of a motor pool organization.

About Carolyn Lang