Key Takeaways:
Optimize your pest control fleet operations to reduce costs, improve safety, and maximize technician productivity with smarter vehicle management strategies.
- Reduce accident risk and vehicle downtime by implementing driver behavior monitoring systems that track speeding, aggressive driving, and idling—protecting both your technicians and your expensive fleet assets.
- Incentivize safer driving habits through gamification and rewards programs that create team competition around driving scores, resulting in lower fuel costs, reduced maintenance expenses, and decreased insurance liability.
- Protect against frivolous lawsuits with smart safety cameras that continuously record and provide video evidence—critical when 70% of commercial vehicle accidents aren't the driver's fault but can still result in costly settlements.
- Shift from reactive to proactive maintenance using automated vehicle tracking systems that monitor engine fault codes, schedule maintenance based on odometer readings, and can improve fuel economy by up to 40%.
- Maximize technician utilization by minimizing unscheduled downtime and ensuring your team spends less time dealing with vehicle issues and more time servicing customers profitably.
Ready to reduce your fleet operational costs while keeping your technicians safer on the road? Schedule a demo with PestPac to see how integrated GPS vehicle tracking and fleet management can transform your business operations.
Two important challenges our customers face in the pest control industry are acquiring and retaining technicians and securing the work trucks needed to safely and efficiently get from job to job. Ongoing labor market and global supply chain issues have exacerbated these challenges. Additionally, the cost of wages, vehicles, raw materials, commercial auto insurance and fuel are all rising.
There are tools to reduce the risks associated with your technicians’ driving behavior and motor vehicle records. The improved driving behavior, in turn, reduces the wear and tear on your vehicles, which saves you money by reducing maintenance costs and downtime in the shop. With fuel making up 39% of total fleet operational costs, reevaluating your fuel optimization strategy can save money at the pump.
Maximize Utilization of Valuable Assets
I’m going to state the obvious here: If your technician is in an accident, you’re out of a truck that day, perhaps several days or even weeks, while it’s getting repaired or replaced. At best, your tech is sitting on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck, if not injured. Regardless of the severity of the accident, his day is going to be very unproductive. Depending on the time of day, there may be several appointments that still need to be completed, forcing your office staff to shift other techs’ schedules around.
On average, technicians are behind the wheel of your expensive, beautifully wrapped and fully outfitted truck for about two hours a day. First, you didn’t hire them for their responsible and defensive driving skills. When your technicians describe their role, they rarely mention being a “driver.” Second, you want them to get to every job as quickly and efficiently as possible. There are competing priorities at play. Racing from light to light, aggressive cornering and speeding all have a detrimental effect on the wear and tear of the vehicle’s engine, transmission and tires. Still, more importantly, your accident risk profile increases dramatically.
Incentivize Driver Behavior
The costs associated with operating your trucks are not directly relevant to your techs, but they can be with the right incentives. When techs can see how their driving stacks up against the entire team, it creates a culture of awareness that markedly reduces idling, speeding and aggressive driving. This culminates in lower fuel and maintenance costs and less risky driving behavior. When technicians compete for the best driving score, everyone wins. Make sure to incentivize with a financial reward.
Watch Your Back
For a few hours each day, your company truck is on the road screaming, “I 100% have commercial auto insurance!” If you have your name on your truck, you are a target for many law firms. So, how are you minimizing your liability from frivolous nuclear lawsuits?
On average, 70% of all accidents are not the fault of the driver of a commercial vehicle. However, in the age of nuclear lawsuits, too often you are guilty until proven innocent and if there’s no video evidence, your insurance company just settles the case to limit the damage. Smart safety cameras protect your business by continuously recording and sending videos to the cloud. The more advanced cameras will monitor for poor driving behavior and assist in correcting common distractions. Regardless, knowing what happened enables you to protect your business from frivolous lawsuits and, in turn, protect your technician’s driving record.
Minimize Unscheduled Downtime
Scheduled maintenance is an often-overlooked operational challenge. Vehicle tracking systems are pretty smart; they listen to the vehicle's health and provide engine fault codes, alerting you to problems with the engine, brakes, tires and more in real-time. The warning a technician sees in the vehicle is minimal and often does not get communicated to the right people right away. The same code reader mechanics use to identify the fault code and corresponding severity can be delivered using modern vehicle tracking systems, so there’s no need to rely on your techs to report these issues.
Automated reports provide detailed information on maintenance tasks and keep track of vehicles that require assistance soon. You should set up alerts and reminders based on odometer and fault codes for services due, such as oil changes, brake jobs, tire rotations and any other preventative services or vehicle inspections.
Automotive Fleet Magazine reported that proper maintenance can improve fuel economy by as much as 40%, and the U.S. Department of Energy states that proper tire pressure can improve your gas mileage by 0.6% on average — up to 3% in some cases. Plus, there is a labor shortage within the automotive repair industry that is causing delays of hours or days in routine repairs. Shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance will reduce your operational costs and increase the efficiency of your technicians.
Be safe!
This post was written in partnership with Matt Curtis, Vice President of Partnerships at Azuga, a Bridgestone Company.
