Maintenance challenges are undoubtedly one of the most frustrating components of every rental fleet’s operations. A good maintenance operation can often be the difference between success and failure, between cars with a high valuation and cars with a low one, or happy customers and angry ones. If you manage a fleet, you know the challenges of what happens when a car runs into trouble that makes it undrivable. More to the point, you’d give anything to keep that car in operation.
What if there was a way to keep your fleet going and avoid maintenance problems before they started?
Telematics offers a way for your fleet operations to know when your car has trouble and what to do about it. By deploying a robust telematics tools and platforms — like those offered by Zubie — you can keep your fleet up and running and ensure that your cars spend as little time off the road as possible.
Get the Alerts You Need
Imagine two scenarios.
First, you discover one of your cars breaks down on the road when an angry customer calls you. You have to dispatch a tow truck, get the car back, perform days’ worth of maintenance, and scramble to get another vehicle for the next customer who was supposed to get the car the next day.
In the second scenario, one week before the car breaks down, you get an alert on your Zubie dashboard: There is an engine problem. Made aware of this potential issue, you pull the car off of the road and get the offending component replaced in just a few hours. As a result, the car goes to the next customer, who is now ready to drive the vehicle uninterrupted.
This second scenario is obviously preferable. It is also completely possible when you use Zubie telematics. Zubie’s proactive maintenance system gives you real-time data on many maintenance issues, including engine problems, oil alerts, battery voltage, and more. If a car dips below pre-determined values, or if there is any challenge with the car’s maintenance, you can receive an automated alert that will allow you to manage a small problem before it becomes a major one.
These alerts can be for more than just emergent issues. You can also use these alerts to remind yourself about needed maintenance and regular oil changes. From there, you can better plan your inventory and ensure you do everything you need to keep your fleet healthy.
Vehicle Health Reports
One of the greatest challenges with fleet maintenance is that there is just so much that you don’t know. Unless you have the right equipment, you simply don’t know which cars are performing well, which ones aren’t, and which ones may need immediate repair to avoid a major mechanical issue. Fortunately, this is another area where the right technological solution can save you time and money.
Telematics lets you get real-time data on how your vehicle performs across various health measures. These health reports are then synchronized into one place. Your fleet managers can easily determine how your cars are doing from there. You can also begin to make educated guesses about which cars may need maintenance in the future and which ones will be able to continue uninterrupted service for thousands more miles.
This performance data is also about more than the overall health of your fleet, as you can use it to make long-term decisions about the state of your fleet and when you will need to buy more cars. One of the greatest challenges with any fleet maintenance protocol is that too many pieces of data are siloed. Fleet maintenance may not talk to scheduling, and this information may not connect with vehicle valuation estimates. If you have the correct real-time data and the right programs to manage this data, you can ensure that all information is connected. For example, Zubie also offers a vehicle valuation function. This function allows you to use a variety of factors — including market projections, fleet composition, and the condition of each car — to determine the overall value and condition of your fleet.
To that end, you can use real-time vehicle health reports to determine how much your car is worth and when you may need to sell a vehicle or buy a new one.
Synchronize Maintenance With Utilization & Inventory
As noted above, real-time maintenance data must be easily synchronized with other operation components to be truly useful. After all, one of the key reasons you need real-time health alerts is to make long-term decisions about vehicle utilization and scheduling.
Fortunately, Zubie’s vehicle alerts work hand-in-glove with existing scheduling systems. When you book a customer into a car, you can quickly see if there are any pressing maintenance concerns with that vehicle. If there are, you can remove that car from circulation and plan. Furthermore, our real-time alerts allow you to manage customer scheduling in just a few clicks. For example, if a vehicle health challenge makes operating a vehicle impossible, your staff can receive an alert and react accordingly.
To that end, this vehicle health platform is about more than just vehicles; it’s about the people driving those vehicles. Furthermore, it allows you to streamline operations, increase the efficiency of your staff, and make your customers happier.
Partner With Zubie
Running a fleet maintenance operations is hard under any circumstances. At Zubie, we’re here to make it easier for you. Our rental connect solution can provide your entire fleet with the necessary maintenance data and alerts, ensuring that you preemptively manage your fleet’s maintenance and do whatever you need to keep your cars on the road longer.
Ready to learn more? Contact us today for specifics on how Zubie can help you meet your maintenance needs.