You’re having problems managing your fleet. That's not surprising. 

On a first note; it’s not you.

As the fleet manager, the way you manage your fleet and anything from sending vehicles out for repairs to coordinating drivers to the right locations, all in a timely manner, has the word “problem” already embedded in it. 

In an action movie matter “Downtime” is your biggest enemy. It plays the Joker in your Batman movie and the Green Goblin in your Spiderman universe. The question is however, what really is downtime and what is its impact in terms of actual dollar value? 

Whether it's repair, insurance, claims, weather, or getting your vehicles from one place to another, time is always crucial. Facing inefficiencies or disruptions in one area causes a chain reaction in other areas of operations and leads to downtime.

Downtime: Two kinds of costs

First, let's identify what we are really dealing with and break it into different components. In the world of our villain, “downtime”comes with hard and soft costs. 

Hard Costs: connected to direct work done to your fleet that you are being billed for, such as fuel for transportation, maintenance, body repair, and insurance. 

vs.

Soft Costs: anything that is indirectly affected by inefficiencies within the hard costs, such as operational inefficiencies, lost revenue through downtime or expediting certain processes, and lost driver profit.

Considering these different costs, we quickly realize that time is money, and not just a fancy phrase. For fleet managers, there are many hidden costs that affect the overall business, not just in terms of revenue but also time. The numbers tell the truth: the average downtime in a fleet can cost anywhere from $448 to $760 per vehicle per day in lost revenue (Fleet Maintenance Weekly, Platform Science, EasiTrack).

If we do the math and look at fleets with, for example, 1,000 vehicles with just 5 downtime events a year, this can add up to approximately $595,000 annually in soft costs alone. Therefore, generally, when planning your fleet management for the quarter, consider that there is a minimum of $448 lost in revenue per vehicle per day due to unplanned downtime. The question that you, as a fleet manager, fleet coordinator, or someone in Ops, should ask yourselves at this point is this easy question: How can I avoid losing about $500 per vehicle downtime? 

‍Think Beyond the Obvious: Hidden Costs of Downtime

First things first: be aware of what costs you could be facing, even if you haven't faced them yet in your career. Things happen, and we’ve all been there, a great example is COVID-19. I know you shuddered just by reading that, but that's exactly what no one saw coming, yet it drastically changed how we lived for years. More diluted dilemmas such as bad weather, recalls, missing business licenses, things as simple as never-ending traffic add to the list of such costs that seem small but do cause downtime. 

Here's a Breakdown: 

1. Workflow Disruptions

The more steps in the repair process, the more risk of operational downtime. Typically this includes reassigning different teams such as dispatch & pick-up teams, contacting customers for updates, coordinating tow trucks, allocating storage, and pulling staff off for higher priority work (Platform Science). These lead to missed or delayed deliveries, disrupting workflows which can reduce overall productivity across multiple departments that could go far beyond fleet management.

2. Driver Frustration & Turnover

Downtime not only costs your company money but also increases frustration within the company. Drivers risk a lower income due to poor management or frequent downtime and put their work/life balance at risk. The more these management challenges occur, the more this becomes an internal issue.

3. Customer Trust & Reputation

In the fleet management universe, 88% of customers heavily rely on referrals, trust and reputation and make or break whether you gain customers or not. Late deliveries and frequent overcharges and unexplained charges lead to permanent damage to your brand image, lead to distrust, and can be the reason for bad customer relationships.

4. Safety & Compliance Risks

Breakdowns are a nightmare, no pun intended. 

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One thing you want to avoid at all costs is a breakdown, even if it's just one vehicle, breakdowns break everything, not just the vehicle. It breaks the cycle and raises reasons for your customer to charge you fines or even in extreme cases, submit a lawsuit. Not only does it affect the relationship between you and your customer, but it also increases internal frustration by triggering HOS violations and risking CSA scores that are monitored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)  and put the company's reputation at risk (Platform Science).

5. Missed Maintenance Leading to Bigger Repairs

Skipping maintenance is like skipping your breakfast, the most important meal of the day. 

It's an underrated factor in downtime, which actually can lead to bigger repairs, not only increasing hidden costs such as downtime but also hard costs due to bigger repair problems that could have been avoided. Simply looking at the stats, every call for emergency repairs costs about 3–9x more than preventative ones that could have been avoided through scheduled maintenance and diagnosis through telematics, OBD-II, and MCU chips.

Solution: Change Your Mindset

Managing a fleet requires a “Work Smarter Not Harder” mindset. 

You want to be the best of the best? Then embrace breaking the traditional way of managing and use tools that were built specifically for you to make your life easier. Tools such as microchips, telematics, AI and different softwares can help you work smarter. Companies such as Merchants, and fleet management softwares such as Fleetio can help you find the solutions you need to decrease our common enemy: Downtime.

Now… imagine there being a software that allows you to manage your entire fleets repair on one platform, from your phone or desktop, regardless of the size of your fleet… Nevermind, that sounds too good to be true…👀

Or maybe not, see for yourself→ click here