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Proper fleet management provides accountability, efficiency, and safety — and saves HVAC contractors money.

“As an HVAC, plumbing, and roofing business owner, managing our fleet of over 100 trucks is critical to ensure operational efficiency, meet customer needs, and optimize our bottom line,” said Kathryn Howard, CEO and co-owner of Lee’s Air in Fresno, California.

Since the majority of a contractor’s workforce is out driving company vehicles every day, contractors should jump at any opportunity to enhance their safety on the road. Fortunately, the right fleet management system can do that.

Better Managing

“Fleet management systems, particularly those with cameras and AI capabilities, help keep contractors safe on the road by encouraging safer driving behavior, while also providing owners and managers with peace of mind,” said Vincent Payen, ServiceTitan's vice president of pro products.

Keeping drivers safe usually means keeping them from getting into accidents, which — apart from the obvious concern of employee safety — would be an expense for a contractor.

“Accidents are expensive,” Payen said. “With fleet [management], not only do you minimize the risk of accidents by promoting safer driving behavior, but in the event an accident does occur, you will have video evidence to review what happened.”

Properly managing fleets also makes employees more accountable, which has proven to be an important part of company culture.

“This includes encouraging responsible driving habits such as avoiding excessive idling, speeding, and aggressive driving to improve fuel efficiency,” Payen said. “It can also focus on vehicle care — ensuring drivers conduct pre-trip inspections, report any vehicle issues promptly, and maintain cleanliness and organization inside vehicles.”

Daniel Simon, founder and CEO of Coast, a Visa fleet fuel and gas card plus expense management that helps fleet management while tracking employee spending, said something like a fleet (or fuel) card can enhance accountability.

“When you give the technician the company credit card so they can buy what they need while they’ve taken the van out to do their job, you need control, security, and visibility reporting — you need the specialized software that you get from something like a fleet card,” Simon said. “You want to make sure your people are buying the right grade of gas and they're not going into the convenience store to buy potato chips and cigarettes, or gassing up their personal car … You’ll find most of your employees are going to be ethical and loyal people.”

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Simon mentioned that he recently saw a survey that found that 80% of employees who lie on their expense reports never get caught.

“Controlling expenses is important for your businesses’ bottom line,” Simon said. “All that needs to be proactively managed, and fleet cards give companies the tools they need to empower their workforce when they're in the field, while giving managers the trust and visibility they need to avoid abused waste.”

Fleet Management Best Practices

Controlling expenses is just one of the factors in play when it comes to properly managing a fleet. Ultimately, contractors want to understand the total cost of ownership of the fleet and the vehicles within it, in order to make decisions regarding their fleet assets and how they are managed.

“You need things like line item detail on your purchases enriching your transaction data — the kind of data that you would get from a receipt, normally,” Simon said. “You also want to make sure that you're requiring receipts or memos for transactions that fit certain criteria.”

A GPS tracking system can also aid contractors in managing their fleets. To take it a step further, cameras can be installed in all of the fleet vehicles.

“While GPS tracking and telematics is good for tracking, usage, timekeeping, and proactive maintenance, adding cameras to your fleet increases your ability to monitor your vehicles exponentially,” Payen said.

In order to do that, though, contractors should ensure their fleet management software is correctly installed and set up.

“Sometimes, we see fleets where they only have technology partially installed, and a lot of devices are left sitting around, or devices aren’t set up correctly,” Payen said. “Additionally, make sure you spend the time to fully set up all the alerts, geofences, notifications, and configurations to suit your business needs.”

When the proper software is installed, managing fleets becomes that much easier. It can even help technicians stay on top of vehicle maintenance by sending them notifications when it’s time for service.

“We rely on key practices such as regular maintenance, GPS tracking, driver training, and leveraging smart technology to keep our fleet running smoothly,” said Howard.

Fleet management has changed quite a bit over the last few years, making the process for contractors all the more worth it.

“Recently, advancements in technology and economic factors have made fleet management even more essential and cost-effective,” Howard said.

Because of the world’s technological advancements, fleet management can now utilize AI.

“We now have smart AI cameras that can automatically detect bad driving behavior, hazardous road conditions, and distracted drivers — that will not only record incidents but also trigger warnings,” Payen said.

Fleet management software also now uses telematics, which allows companies to not only enhance driver safety, but also their productivity.

“You can understand where your drivers are, who's being safe, or who’s hard braking; you can tell with dash cams who is texting while they're driving, who's actually being efficient versus who's just idling in the parking lot,” Simon said. “That's a critical component of fleet management because it's focused on helping you to really grow.”

There is now fleet management software that is specifically designed for the HVACR industry that optimizes contractor data, ensuring that all of a contractor’s fleet needs are met.

ServiceTitan’s Fleet Pro includes using GPS data to detect discrepancies with technician timesheets and match vehicle locations to actual jobs, Payen said. This gives contractors insight into not only where technicians are or were, but also where they’re supposed to be and where they will be.

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Fleet Pro’s automated GPS timesheet integration updates technician timesheets according to GPS data, saving time and protecting contractors from excess wages or wage theft claims. (Courtesy of ServiceTitan)

“In our operations, we utilize ServiceTitan Dispatch Pro software to effectively manage our fleet, providing us with comprehensive tracking, maintenance scheduling, and other valuable tools,” Howard said.

Simon said contractors should also be able to know when someone is trying to make a purchase at a merchant that is far away from the GPS location of the vehicle, and they should be able to flag or decline that.

“Having all these different components in your software toolkit, and having them integrate well together, really helps you save a lot of time and save a lot of money and focus more on growth,” Simon said.

And in today’s economy, can any HVAC contractor really afford to not save money?

“As the cost of everything from fuel, maintenance, labor, insurance, and accidents have gone up as a result of inflation,” Payne said. “This means that the financial downside and risk of not having fleet management solutions is significantly greater than the cost of installing a solution.”

Is Big Brother Watching?

Some contractors may be hesitant to take a leap into fleet management, fearing it could cultivate a company culture of distrust. But that’s not the goal of fleet management, Simon said.

“Our feeling is that these kinds of tools are a way to actually reduce the attitude of mistrust between fleet managers and their employees because everyone has clarity, certainty, visibility, and it leaves little room for mistrust and allows the honest employees in the business to focus on doing their jobs without always having to be questioned because their managers already know that they're doing right by the business,” Simon said.

When contractors/technicians are aware of the benefits of fleet management software and all that comes along with it (i.e. dash cams, GPS tracking, payment limits), they are more likely to get on board.

“With how advanced fleet management tools have come and the advancement of AI, contractors and techs are seeing how fleet management software can actually prevent accidents from occurring and remove liability for their business,” Payne said.

Since AI cameras are able to detect unsafe behavior (like texting and driving) before an event like an accident could occur by audible notifying the driver of the incident, over time this could reduce the number of future occurrences from that driver, while allowing contractors to proactively monitor technician behavior.

“Although there may have been initial concerns about privacy with fleet management software, we've found that transparent communication and employee involvement help overcome any reservations,” Howard said.