Once upon a time, whiteboards were used to manage fleet dispatching. The job involved simply assigning drivers a manifest full of stops and hoping they would stick to safe driving en route and handle everything well by the end of their run. Over time, fleet dispatching has undergone a lot of changes. Today, it’s not just about handing out a manifest with the designated stops to the driver and hoping that all turns out well at the end of it. Rather, it’s about managing every aspect of dispatch – right from tracking to delivery and communication to ensure everything is done seamlessly. If you take a closer look at a reputed luxury limo service in San Francisco, CA like Pacific Town Car (PTC), you will find that a lot of modern routing challenges need to be overcome to deliver high-quality services to passengers. And it’s exactly where dispatch tracking can help by providing a higher level of fleet control, accountability, visibility, and efficiency. Those who think dispatch tracking has become old-school should take a closer look at its benefits to realize how it’s as important today as it was earlier. Given below are the top three benefits that such a system can bring your way.
Benefits of dispatch tracking
1- A significant boost in operational efficiency
A majority of car rentals in San Francisco, CA today use dispatch tracking to boost their operational efficiency significantly. With proper dispatch and planning, fleet managers can predict when a particular vehicle will arrive at a location, which helps in coordinating the next pick-up or drop-off. This, in turn, ensures that the particular vehicle keeps moving profitably and efficiently. Thus, unlike earlier days when dispatch tracking was all about fixed schedules, the focus now has shifted on scheduling vehicles in such a way that it’s flexible and makes sense – both convenience-wise and economically. Though the entire task may sound simple, it isn’t. Rather, it involves several steps and proper coordination to ensure vehicular operational improvements. This would not only boost operational efficiency but also help to avoid potential chaos, unnecessary repair costs, sudden breakdowns, etc.
When you contact companies offering limo for rent, San Francisco, CA that have dispatch tracking, you can rest assured of having a seamless, on-time ride. That’s because historical data related to dispatch tracking such as usage hours, mileage, etc. help in planning future service schedules in a much better way.
Dispatch tracking systems can also help fleet managers notice frequent breakdowns or other problems related to malfunctioning, etc. that make the vehicles sit idle for long, consume more fuel, and even upset the schedules of their own as well as that of others. Thus, it can help in scheduling service and maintenance tasks right on time to avoid such issues that may annoy customers or drive them away.
Some dispatch tracking systems come equipped with anti-theft and geolocation features that can help prevent theft of vehicles and decrease the use of manual entry of driver time. By encouraging quick and seamless communication between fleet managers and drivers via automation, dispatch tracking systems also help in quick and efficient decision making and advice/help, if needed en route.
When combined, all the above help in facilitating administration tasks and thus, save precious time and effort. This, in turn, help fleet managers and administrators devote more time to core business processes that need more attention, which improves the operational efficiency of a car rental in San Francisco, CA.
2- Enhanced safety
With dispatch tracking, you can support a proactive approach that helps in keeping your assets and workforce safe, operational, and compliant. When it comes to the safety of your fleet operatives, such a tracking system would help you to manage breakdowns and accidents more efficiently by directing help to the ones in need of it. After all, when you have a physical location of your vehicle as well as the driver, responding to emergency situations would be much easier and faster.
People using car rental, San Francisco, CA often complain about drivers’ actions that could jeopardize both their and the drivers’ lives. These include aggressive acceleration, hard braking, speeding, staying glued to their phones for long or often, etc. Dispatch tracking can help in monitoring and sending alerts for such unsafe driving behavior with the aim of correcting them. Errant drivers whose logs show such behaviors repetitively could be taken to task by their fleet managers. Driving logs of drivers maintained by dispatch tracking systems can also help in evaluating their driving performance and reward those who perform well while reprimanding the errant ones. Such logs can also offer useful information that can be used to train the drivers better and make them aware about safe driving as well as passenger safety standards and policies.
In case there’s an accident or a dispute involving an employee, valuable data can be received from dispatch tracking that could help in analyzing the root cause and even mitigating liability. So, if the company providing car rental, San Francisco, CA is asked to submit supporting data or proof to the law enforcement agencies, a client, insurance company, etc., such critical data retrieved from dispatch tracking systems (such as date, location, and time, etc.) can help immensely.
If your vehicle gets stolen, you can even use your dispatch tracking systems to locate that vehicle. This will let you (probably with the help of the police) to recover your vehicle fast, thus reducing the chances of damage and vandalism. When you respond quickly to a theft (thanks to your dispatch tracking), you will greatly increase the probability of recovering your stolen vehicle before it gets renovated or is stripped down and its parts are sold.
3- Improved customer service
When you offer on-demand luxury limo service in San Francisco, CA, you will have to make your customers happy to retain them and even encourage them to do some word-of-mouth publicity and give favorable ratings to help you get new customers. Whether your fleet runs on static or dynamic routes or both, you will have to plan your routes well and optimize allotments to maximize efficiency. By giving you a real-time global view of driver movement, a dispatch tracking system helps you to reduce costs and hold-up times, boost operational efficiency, and improve service. At the same time, since you will know the exact location of your vehicle at any point of time, you can easily inform your customers exactly when their ride would arrive. Rather than saying they will have their limo arrive “in between 9 am and 11 am”, it’s much better to tell them that their pick-up time is at 9.30 am and that the chauffeur will arrive at least 10-15 minutes earlier to help them get comfortably settled before the ride begins. This will surely reduce customer irritations, which are mostly triggered by sloppy service. Knowing the exact time of their rented vehicle’s arrival would also help the customers avoid being anxious about missing that early morning flight or lose sleep wondering if they would reach their destination on time.
Since all rides are closely monitored by dispatch tracking, customers can stay assured of having a seamless, on-time ride without any unnecessary pit stops or hold-ups. At the same time, getting lost or stranded just because a road sign has been missed or the driver took a wrong turn could also be minimized. That’s because when in doubt, the driver can quickly talk to the fleet manager/supervisor to get help/advice, thus ensuring not much time is lost, unlike when he decides to play trial-and-error and seeks help after wasting much time and causing tremendous inconvenience to the passengers. Even if a driver chooses not to seek help, dispatch tracking would send alerts the moment it notices any deviation from the designated route or any unusual and unscheduled stops en route. This too would ensure the passenger’s trip goes as per schedule and he/she reaches his/her designated destination on time.
Since dispatch tracking provides job completion reports with detailed data like locations, timestamps, etc. and could even include supervisor/manager’s special notes, if any, it would help to pinpoint liability in case there are any customer complaints. Whether a customer is dissatisfied due to the driver’s rash driving or speeding or feels irritated due to late arrival, such complaints can be dealt with quickly and efficiently by checking them against the details provided by your dispatch tracking system. When customers find their issues are handled fast and with utmost care, they won’t rant against your company or mar its reputation. Rather, they may have some good words to say. After all, satisfying customers isn’t just about delivering high-quality and dependable services consistently. It’s also about handling complaints efficiently so that your agitated and irritated customers are pacified and come back to you again the next time they need a car rental, San Francisco, CA.
Perhaps you now understand why you need a dispatch tracking system for your vehicles, irrespective of whether you offer luxury limo service in San Francisco, CA or any other type of car rental, San Francisco, CA.