The equipment rental business is not limited to the confines of offices and is, in fact, often more spread out to different avenues than not. The field of operations is by default much more significant, and while this can be a good factor when it comes to the volume of business, it can pose some challenges too.
Here are some of the most common challenges that equipment rental businesses face today:
- Need to improve their efficiency
- Increase in customer demands
- Engaging and motivating the field staff
- Minimizing repeat field visits
- Staying ahead of the competition
These are real problems and do tie into each other with one aspect influencing another. The answer is simple; it is time to move away from reams of paperwork, complex excel spreadsheets, siloed systems, and the resulting inefficiencies to an optimum equipment rental solution.
How can the equipment rental solution help? To start with, it will make the flow of information better, ensure that the data is updated in real-time, become a single source of truth, offer easy planning options, and enable mobility. However, that is not all; your equipment rental solution can help you do much more.
Here is an overview of the main aspects:
Put in place service parameters: It is crucial for your team (at office and on-field) to have the complete information about the service levels that you have agreed on. Service technicians with access to this data can plan better and deliver the service accordingly. With mobility enabled, they also have the option of real-time updates that helps in billing, reduces paperwork, and reduces errors.
Use a graphical dashboard to plan: Equipment rental solutions offer a graphical view of the service requests along with the locations, the placement of the service team, and other details. The drag-and-drop option further eases the planning with clearer visuals. As a result, you can plan logistics and assignment of the right person to the job and keep track of the progress made to speed up the invoicing process as well.
Empower your staff with mobility: Today, mobility has added an entirely convenient dimension to many aspects of our life. In the equipment rental business, the mobility aspect continues to play a vital role by allowing the field team to access the details using the devices of their choice, update, and coordinate with ease. You can also reduce transportation costs and improve efficiency by allocating jobs as per the geographical proximity of the technician.
Enhance fix rates with workflows: If your solution can offer you a range of pre-designed workflows for typical service requests along with a role-based workflow, then your first-time fix rates will get a definite uptick. It would help a service engineer finish his or her task better if he or she were to be provided with diagnostics of the problem and the right order to complete the job. They could also have the option to consult an expert wherever required.
Improve morale, customer satisfaction, and profitability: If you think about, these three factors are tied into each other. When your equipment rental solution helps your field staff efficiently and quickly address service requests and reduce paperwork, then their morale goes up. When the field staff is happy, they work better, and their interactions with the customers are pleasant, which results in customer satisfaction. When morale is high it improves efficiency and productivity. These two factors combined with customer satisfaction result in improved profitability.
An equipment rental solution like DynaRent can help you deal with complex field challenges that you face without compromising on profitability.
Michiel Toppers
