5 benefits of fleet management apps for the HVAC industry

Operating costs are generally in the top five spending areas of an HVAC fleet. And with insurance, fuel, tax, maintenance, and repair costs in the mix, it's easy to see why. That's why many HVAC companies are turning to fleet management and GPS tracking solutions. With the information collected and displayed by an HVAC fleet management app, fleet managers can make sure vehicles and technicians behave in a fuel-efficient way that also don't cause excess wear and tear.

An app is just one piece of an HVAC fleet management system. It's the way you access the data collected by fleet management hardware.

Benefits of HVAC Fleet Management Apps

An HVAC fleet management app gives fleet managers a wide range of opportunities to improve their fleet's operation. Satellite positioning, data logging, and data communication to the office or dispatcher are just a few of them. Reporting mileage, trip details, and vehicle locations are increasingly being done entirely with smartphones.

Having a fleet management app integrated with your organizational processes has multiple benefits.

1. Reduced Fuel Costs

Fuel is one of the most unpredictable costs of managing an HVAC fleet. While fuel prices are not something fleet managers can control, reducing fuel consumption may be with an HVAC fleet app. Many driver behaviors negatively affect your fleet's fuel consumption and therefore increase your fuel costs.

The behaviors include aggressive driving such as speeding, rapid acceleration, excessive idling, and harsh braking. This shows there are many ways your drivers can improve the efficiency of your fleet. With an HVAC fleet management app, you can track and curb aggressive driving behavior and reduce your fleet's fuel consumption.

2. Optimize Journey Dispatching

Planning safe and efficient routes for your fleet is key to keeping them on time and keeping your customers satisfied. While many customers know that they have a "window" in which a technician will arrive, excessive waiting may reduce their satisfaction with your service. With GPS tracking, you can monitor your fleet vehicles and technicians' locations and get alerts through the HVAC fleet management app. This way, you can let your customers know if their technician is delayed and by how much.

Telematics can give you task management solutions that let you monitor journeys from beginning to end and communicate with your drivers. You can send them route updates in real-time to avoid traffic and other hazards as well as directions to hard-to-find locations. You can reroute technicians in real-time if one gets delayed so that your customers are not kept waiting. By assigning the nearest technicians to a job, you save on hours and fuel consumption while improving customer satisfaction. Overall, streamlined and transparent journey management increases productivity, saves time, and improves service levels.

3. Improves Vehicle Maintenance

If your fleet vehicles are poorly maintained, they will burn more fuel and cost you more money. Things such as under-inflated tires, using incorrect motor oil grade, dirty air filters, improperly aligned tires, and worn out spark plugs all contribute to excess fuel consumption and wear and tear on your fleet vehicles. They can also cause unexpected breakdowns that keep your vehicles in the shop rather than on the road. These unexpected delays are detrimental to HVAC fleet efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Using a preventative maintenance model can help mitigate these issues. You can set up notifications through your telematics software that lets you know when your vehicles are due for regular maintenance. By automating this task, your maintenance will be on time and at your convenience. You'll know which vehicles are in the shop, and you can schedule around them.

With telematics devices that hook into your vehicles' engines, you can use diagnostic information to schedule preventative and predictive maintenance. This means that you can get alerts through your HVAC fleet app that lets you know the best time to schedule oil changes, tire rotations, and more based on data from each vehicle. Not only does this help keep your vehicles running well, but it can also save you money.

For instance, rather than changing your vehicles' oil based on mileage or time, you can schedule it based on when they need it. If a particular vehicle has been driven more than expected, you'll know and can help avoid additional wear and tear on parts by changing it earlier than you would have. And if a vehicle covered less mileage than expected, you can prevent unneeded oil changes and save money.

4. Optimizes Driving Behavior and Safety

Aggressive driving behavior not only increases your fleet's fuel consumption, it also increases the likelihood of accidents and crashes. The majority of crashes are caused by driver behavior, so you need to know how poor decision-making has a negative impact on your fleet's safety. Through an HVAC fleet app, you can monitor and manage unsafe driving behaviors such as speeding, harsh braking, harsh accelerating, distracted driving, and more.

Telematics gives you the ability to deploy in-cab audio and visual alerts to let the driver know, in real-time, that they have violated a parameter. It also gives them the chance to self-correct before possibly getting into an accident. You can use the information collected and stored to determine which technicians drive aggressively and give them the appropriate training. You can set up a training program that ranks drivers based on parameters that you choose.

With a driver-focused HVAC fleet app, you can give drivers access to information about their driving and access to their ranking on a driver leaderboard. When they see how they compare to other drivers, it can motivate them to improve. Seeing the stats about their performance on a screen gives them a visual that brings the information home. When they see their ranking move up or down, the consequences of their driving behavior will seem more real.

5. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

With an HVAC fleet app, you'll be able to keep your drivers running on time and give your customers accurate ETAs. You can also ensure driver compliance with regulations while staying on schedule. By setting up alerts and automating maintenance schedules, you make sure you are using the right resources combined with your HVAC fleet management app to reduce errors and achieve enhanced customer satisfaction.

Implementing a telematics solution with an HVAC fleet management app helps solve everyday challenges in real-time. You can access insights and use big data to help your HVAC business succeed while helping you stand out in an extremely competitive environment.