With so many different shops on what seems like every street corner and so many niche areas of specialization in the auto shop industry, finding and maintaining consistent business is a significant challenge for today's shops. Customers have more choices than ever about where they take their vehicles for service. Distinguishing your shop from the others isn't always easy—yet it will always be important in keeping your doors open.
Fleet maintenance is a viable solution that can prove very lucrative for auto shops when properly set up and managed with fleet maintenance management software. Fleet maintenance is a massive part of fleet management, which consists of everything related to operating a fleet, from acquiring vehicles to monitoring their progress and completing paperwork for them.
Since modern fleets can encompass anything from a couple of delivery cars to scores of trucks for long-distance hauls, there's something for every shop to gain from fleet maintenance. By choosing to focus on fleet maintenance, shops can revamp their customer bases and get more work for their employees while positively impacting revenues.
Advantages of Fleet Services
There are several advantages to performing fleet maintenance, almost all of which directly contribute to growing your auto shop. When maintaining a fleet of vehicles, shops not only increase the number of customers they serve. They also get the added benefit of servicing those vehicles more regularly than those of other customers whose cars are used for recreation or modest commutes. Vehicles in fleets are used for professional purposes like deliveries, installations, or patrolling, which means they're driven more, often harder, than vehicles of other types of customers. Consequently, they need to be better maintained, resulting in more frequent trips to auto shops and more work performed on the vehicles while there.
Shops that attract maintenance customers for fleet management can bank on consistent cash flow and financial stability. And, depending on the number of bays they have and how many vehicles they can work on at a time, this additional income can make for a hefty sum. Also, since these vehicles are for professional use, shops won't have to worry about downtime for vacations or times of the year when other customers are busy doing other things. Helping companies with fleet maintenance management is one of the most dependable sources of revenue in the auto industry.
The Role of Fleet Maintenance Software
Fleet maintenance software for auto shops is a tremendous help for those involved in this aspect of fleet management. In fact, it's one of the best means of keeping shops organized and on point with the additional work required to service fleets in a timely manner. It can be challenging to schedule technicians, resources, parts, and equipment with so many vehicles coming into the shop.
Shops can streamline everything from scheduling fleet maintenance to communicating with fleet owners by relying on software solutions that centralize these and other aspects of the maintenance process. The best software has features for creating fleets in the system out of a group of vehicles, adding vehicles to those fleets, and adding owners as necessary to make managing maintenance concerns easier. Handling these concerns enables fleet owners to rest assured that, as research studies indicate, with regular fleet maintenance, they'll have reduced operational costs.
Fleet maintenance software for auto shops is particularly effective for administrative tasks—like handling payment activities—which makes it beneficial for shops to provide maintenance for fleets. Besides enabling integrations with accounting systems like Quick Books, good options include:
Making statements from multiple invoices.
Taking payments for statements.
Issuing reports on bulk payments.
They also centralize key details, like which technicians and equipment are available at any given time to maintain fleets. All of this information is available within a single system, simplifying these tasks and making them much more repeatable. Consequently, shops can concentrate on providing the best service to their fleet customers while streamlining the particulars for doing so. As a result, well-maintained fleets can better comply with environmental regulations and not subject people to a bevy of harmful conditions outlined here.
The Way to Roll
Supplying the maintenance needs for a customer's fleet management system is a sure way for shops to stabilize their business's consistency while bumping up revenues and attracting different types of customers. Auto shop software solutions that support fleet maintenance have a wealth of benefits from scheduling vehicles, apportioning resources and technicians for them, and simplifying billing and payment concerns for them. It's the way to roll for maintaining fleets. Ready to elevate your shop's fleet management capacity? Contact Shopmonkey today for a demo.
