If your small- or medium-sized business relies on cars and/or vans, you’re constantly looking for ways to improve fleet efficiency. Whether you’re a delivery company or a mobile healthcare provider, fleet efficiency supports financial growth.
The four strategies outlined below can help your SME save costs and work more productively. In addition to specific fleet management processes, you’ll learn about game-changing tools that can help you achieve your efficiency goals quickly and easily.
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Strategies to improve fleet efficiency
1. Automate admin tasks
SMEs need to make the most out of their resources, including time. In managing a fleet, your working day can easily be consumed with tackling a variety of small but essential tasks. Just think about how many hours you spend on quoting and invoicing. If you handle these jobs manually, you know that they can slow down your workflow efficiency.
But administrative tasks like quoting and invoicing are critical to your bottom line. So, how can you cut down the hours you spend on paperwork, freeing that time up for growing your business? The answer lies in automation. A fleet management system like makes it easy to streamline your workflow and automate processes like reporting, maintenance scheduling and order management.
Here’s what you can do with a comprehensive solution like Webfleet, for instance:
- Optimise job orders and provide customers with reliable ETAs
- Speed up billing with automated mileage reporting and invoicing
- Integrate with other applications for the perfect business solution
Discover how to improve fleet efficiency with digital workflow management tools.
2. Cut costs
While managers in every industry will tell you they’d like to reduce costs, fleet managers are frustrated by one cost in particular: fuel.
Fuel represents roughly 38% of a fleet’s total cost of ownership. The past few years have brought wild fluctuations in pricing. Diesel prices jumped 33% between February 2021 and March 2022 alone, dropping again by the summer of 2023 only to sharply rise that fall. Last year, we also saw some pretty wild fluctuations between the summer and fall months.
Implementing fuel-saving measures for your fleet could be key to keeping your vehicles on the road and your business moving forward. These actions should be part of any strategy to improve fleet efficiency:
- Monitor driving behaviours like speed, idling, gear shifting, coasting and cruise control—they all factor into your vehicle’s fuel efficiency
- Use professional navigation to avoid getting stuck in traffic or having to backtrack because of closed roads or low bridges
- Schedule regular maintenance, keeping your vehicles in fuel-efficient condition while also saving costs on unplanned repairs or downtime
- Stay on top of tyre health to proactively address slow leaks and improper tyre pressure, which can have a big impact on your fuel spend
Looking for more strategies for cutting operational costs? See our free resources on saving fuel and more.
3. Connect with your team
The clearer you communicate with your team in the field, the smoother your workflow will run. Yet, for many fleet managers, miscommunication is a regular challenge.
This helps explain why fleets are increasingly using digital solutions to communicate with and manage their people in the field. Tools like mobile apps make it much easier to keep drivers in the loop on important updates—without distracting them. With Webfleet WorkApp, for example, it’s possible to track vehicles, send order details and give drivers a stress-free way to manage tasks.
Communication tools like these help your business create a more dynamic, flexible workflow. They give your fleet manager and back-office team a clearer, more complete view of how your fleet is performing on the roads. And they give your drivers a no-fuss way to stay on top of orders.
Ready to improve fleet efficiency with digital communication tools? Explore our range of productivity apps for fleet managers and drivers.
4. Enhance your customer service
When you work in a competitive industry, new businesses with innovative approaches to customer experience regularly emerge. Even if you’re an established player, it’s in your best interest to keep customers happy and ensure they don’t drift to the competition.
In one of our studies on fleet processes, 60% of the fleet managers we surveyed said that customer service had the biggest impact on business growth. Delivering a solid service to the customer is key to continued business success, while not living up to customer expectations represents a definite risk.
One obvious area where customer expectations must be intelligently managed is ETA. Nobody likes waiting around all day for a delivery or maintenance help. Yet, 58% of respondents for the study noted above claimed that roughly 1/3 of the time their drivers fail to arrive within the first ETA given to the customer.
Need a simple way to improve fleet efficiency and excel in customer service? Try smart order dispatching.
A solution to improve fleet efficiency
Fleet efficiency is about optimising your business so that it can operate more productively and profitably. Many SMEs are adopting fleet management systems to automate processes, save fuel, strengthen communication with drivers and satisfy customers.
How much could your business save by using a fleet management solution? Find out with our free Savings Calculator tool, which will reveal your potential savings in just a few clicks.
And if you’re just looking for a comprehensive solution to start with right away, check out our overview of fleet efficiency essentials.
