By implementing a GPS tracking solution into your waste collection business, you can take full control of your fleet and help your business become more productive and efficient.
Jenny Malcolm
Waste and recycling fleets have the responsibility of providing reliable service—safely and efficiently. The best way to ensure that this responsibility is upheld and your business stays competitive is to use technology that will help you accomplish that. GPS fleet tracking software is changing the face of the fleet management industry by helping improve safety, enhance customer service and reduce costs.
Ensure Safety to Your Customers
Fleets are turning to GPS tracking technology to ensure customers’ safety by monitoring driver behavior, eliminating safety risks and providing smarter navigation to their drivers to keep their focus where it should be, on the road.
GPS tracking solutions make it possible for fleet managers to hold employees accountable for their driving behavior without having to rely on “how’s my driving” stickers. Waste and recycling fleets now have the ability to prevent speeding, rapid acceleration, harsh breaking and any other hazardous behavior in residential neighborhoods automatically. By using GPS tracking, you can make sure your mobile workforce is upholding your business’s safety regulations.
Eliminate Risk Before it Happens
Alerts can be used to act proactively when driver behavior could put both the public and your drivers in danger. Notifying management and drivers the moment that a violation takes place will help to reduce risk and avoid costly accidents.
For example, fleet managers can set up a switch-based alert to monitor how frequently a vehicle’s backup beeper is engaged, which is used to alert passersby that a vehicle will be moving in reverse. This is usually not allowed because it is a huge safety risk and is essentially impossible to monitor without GPS tracking. If drivers receive an alert every time they put their vehicle in reverse and know this activity is being monitored, they are unlikely to continue this behavior. GPS tracking helps to break bad habits, enforce safety regulations and ensure safety to your customers.
Smarter Navigation
GPS tracking technology provides smarter navigation so drivers can focus on the task at hand. Fleet managers can use a GPS tracking solution in conjunction with a navigation device to send drivers their daily routes, send new stops straight into their route throughout the workday and safely communicate with drivers without having to pick up a cell phone. By keeping your drivers focused on the road, you can decrease the chance of accidents.
Enhance Customer Service
One of the most important reasons that customers stay loyal to any business is customer service. GPS tracking technology can help your waste and recycling fleet enhance customer service by providing proof of service and helping your fleet serve customers more efficiently.
Provide Proof of Service
If you receive a customer complaint that your driver never showed for a waste removal service, a GPS tracking solution can easily confirm or dispute this claim. By looking at a customer’s address and your driver’s historical route, you can confirm if they made a stop at the customer’s site at the time of the given dispute. If it turns out your driver did miss a waste pickup, you can easily re-route your closest driver to complete the service. GPS tracking will allow you to choose the best and closest vehicle to the customer location to ensure you get the job done as quickly as possible.
Historical Job Completion
If you receive a customer dispute that goes further back than just a day, you can access historical data to provide proof of service, even if a service took place months back. Easily verify job completion on any dates disputed, provide information on how many times your driver visited the customer’s site in a certain time period and even verify which vehicle performed the waste removal service. Not only does this allow you to provide great customer service, it can also protect your business from being held financially responsible if a customer claims you didn’t complete a job.
Reduce Costs
One of the most beneficial ways that waste and recycling fleets use GPS tracking is to reduce costs across the board for their business. GPS tracking can help waste and recycling businesses reduce high overhead costs by reducing fuel costs, ensuring that you are paying employees for hours worked and reducing the dip in productivity that may occur when hiring new employees.
Reduce Fuel Costs
One of the easiest metrics to monitor with a GPS tracking solution is fuel usage. Most fleet executives would be shocked at just how much they are spending of fuel that is unnecessary. By monitoring fuel metrics, like excessive idle time, your business can save significant amounts of money that could be allocated to other segments of the business. By setting up idle time alerts, drivers will be notified to turn off their vehicles after surpassing an acceptable threshold of idle time. By reducing excessive idle time alone, many fleets have seen more than 100 percent ROI in a GPS tracking solution
Reduce Labor Expenses
Waste and recycling fleets can reduce labor costs by monitoring fleet activity and eliminating timesheet disputes. GPS tracking technology allows you to monitor when a driver begins and ends their day, how many waste collections they completed and how many breaks they took to create an accurate payroll. GPS tracking will help to make sure you are paying employees for time they actually worked.
Use Historical Data to Train New Drivers
One of the biggest hidden expenses for many waste and recycling businesses is driver turnover. Along with the expense of hiring and training new employees, you need to account for the possible dip in productivity while new drivers get up to speed. GPS tracking can help create a much shorter learning curve for new drivers by providing historical routing data. Many waste collections fleets use historical driving routes as a training tool for new employees. By using GPS tracking, you can get your fleet back up to speed and in full productivity much faster.
Take Full Control
Along with the points outlined in this article, there are many other use cases for GPS tracking technology in the waste and recycling industry that can help streamline fleet operations. By implementing a GPS tracking solution into your waste collection business, you can take full control of your fleet and help your business become more productive and efficient.
Jenny Malcolm is the Content Marketing Specialist for GPS Insight (Scottsdale, AZ). She graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor’s of Communication and is responsible for external marketing communication for all business segments that GPS Insight targets. For more information, call (480) 663-9454 or visit www.gpsinsight.com.