Without being defensive and without assuming what the problem is, listen closely to what the customer is saying. Some problems that start out sounding run-of-the-mill are actually more complicated problems in disguise. Quietly take notes and listen without prejudice until the customer reaches a natural stopping point. This also helps calm down an angry customer who needs to vent. Once they’re finished, repeat back what they’ve said and confirm you have the facts right. Then begin working on a solution.

Show Empathy

We’ve all been on the other end of the phone. We’ve all experienced the frustration and helplessness of having a problem we can’t fix and turning to a faceless company for help. Don’t forget how that feels when you’re fielding the call yourself. Establish trust quickly and get on their side of the issue so they know you’re truly in it together.

Speaking of being on the other end of the phone, how do you feel when you call with a complaint and feel like you’re being “handled” by a script? There’s a good chance you’re just going to get more angry. There’s a difference between being guided by a script and reading it verbatim. Robotically-read phrases like “I’m sorry to hear that you are having trouble with your service” should be avoided. Speak naturally. There’s nothing wrong with saying “Wow, that must be a pain! Let’s get this fixed.”

Be Empowered

Customers want their problems solved in one call. Sometimes that means bending the rules or being creative. Losing a customer over something minor needs to be put into perspective. Understand the lifetime value of a customer before hiding behind red tape and rules. A customer service agent’s mission is not to see who can follow the rules most closely, it’s to keep or save a customer. Policies that routinely send customers to the brink need to be re-examined.

Be Ready to Bring in Help

Make sure there is easy access to tier 2 help. Again, customers don’t want to come back later or get passed off to someone else. Have a swift and clear system for getting to someone who’s more technical, more senior or more experienced. Putting a customer on hold once is understandable, but every time after that will give them more time to wonder who your competitors are and how hard it would be to switch.

Whenever Possible, Confirm in Writing

Whether it’s an email, letter, tweet, or comment, most customers want some concrete indication of the resolution so they can refer back to it later. Don’t make them ask for it, offer it. “I’ll send you a follow up email with what we discussed for your records.” This builds trust like you wouldn’t believe! This says you’ll stand behind what you said and the customer doesn’t have to worry about being forgotten.

It sounds obvious, but do you actually take the time to write down ideas and plans for how you want to improve the business each year? Get it out of your head and into an organized format. Maybe even get that original business plan out, dust it off and consider if you’ve honored your original intentions. Areas to consider:

• Pricing policies: Is it time to raise prices or change your pricing structure? Are you losing jobs to competitors because of price?
• Training: Do your technicians spend their time servicing customers or trying to figure out what to do next? Are they calling the office frequently with questions?
• Overhead costs: Are your technicians wasting fuel because of poor routing? Are you paying excessive overtime?
• Measurement: Are you measuring the right things? (average stop time, fuel use, etc.)

2. Implement a Referral Program

Start by surveying your customers about your service. Not only will you gain valuable insights into your performance, you’ll likely identify a few raving fans who can become excellent sources for referrals. Figure out what you can afford to pay for a referral (a free service visit, a Gift Card, etc.), outline the rules (does the referral need to actually purchase something or not, for instance), then begin a call or postcard campaign to solicit referrals from your customers. Just be sure you think through the implications of a sudden wave of referrals both in terms of workload and referral payment.

3. Re-Focus on Customer Service

Honoring Appointments

Do you honor your appointments with rigor? If you say your technician will be there at 9am, do they arrive at 9:15, leaving your customer to start generating negative feelings before the work even begins? According to a survey by TOA Technologies, 2011 saw a $37.7 billion economic impact for the total time people spent waiting for scheduled services. Are you part of the problem or the solution?

Get it Right the First Time

Do your technicians have what they need to get the job done right the first time or are they often having to go back several times? Your customers now need to make another appointment and they may simply look elsewhere.

Technician Attitude

You might cringe if you heard the way some of your technicians talk to customers. Even if they show up on time and do a great job, your customers may not call you back if they don’t like the technician. Do some ride-alongs and pay attention to the conversations your techs have with customers. Correct any issues as soon as you get back to the van.

4. Re-evaluate Your Suppliers

Do you experience lengthy waits on parts? Does it seem like everything you ask for is a special order? You may have a good relationship with a supplier but don’t let that cloud your judgment if it’s time to make a change. Your technicians, your operations team and, most importantly, your customers suffer when they have to scramble for parts and you pay for urgent shipping.

5. Explore Additional Markets

Are there services you could add that would expand your customer base? If you focus on B2C, can you expand into B2B? Can you expand your service zone with some more efficient routing and fuel saving measures like GPS tracking? Do your technicians have skills that could expand your offerings into other areas? You may discover a new market that’s a no-brainer. Just be sure to understand the impact it might have on your business and your current customer base if you need to stretch resources.

American Pest Management was started with a simple Yellow Pages ad placed by Sachdeva’s parents, and has been serving residential and commercial clients in Kansas and Missouri since 1979. Sachdeva took over operations in 1998, continuing the philosophy of a holistic approach that ensures the health of a home or business while also considering that of the environment and inhabitants.

The company protects close to 6,000 clients from termites and other insects all the way up to rodents, snakes, birds and other wildlife. Many of those clients have been with American Pest Management since the beginning. Naturally, customer service is imperative for this company’s success.

With such a high volume of service calls, Sachdeva realized that idling time could eat away at his company’s productivity and cost-efficiency. “The trucks were running while no one was in them,” he says. After hearing about FleetMatics from a friend, he decided to implement the GPS fleet tracking system on some of American Pest Management’s vehicles.

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 Over the last few years, everyone has been feeling the pinch from the rising cost of fuel. Many businesses and fuel procurement offices have assumed that if they could just get past a couple of tough years, that fuel costs will stabilize. If there’s one thing that’s become clear over couple year, it’s that high oil prices are here to stay. 2011 set a record for highest average inflation-adjusted fuel price, and 2012 is projected to keep pace with those levels.
While the high cost of fuel can be a vexing problem for businesses everywhere, it’s can be a major obstacle for shippers and carriers. Luckily, there are a few things that companies that manage a fleet can do to manage the rise in fuel prices. Here are two ways that companies help reduce the impact of high fuel prices on their bottom line.

• Improve Procurement of Fuel – One of the main trends that we’ve seen in the oil and gas market over the last couple of years is increasing volatility. It’s not uncommon for the market to swing five cents per gallon on a given day. If you find yourself on the wrong side of a purchasing decision when buying thousands of gallons of gas, you can quickly bleed money and go over budget. There are some automated solutions, such as FuelQuest, on the market that can help companies forecast demand, monitor on-hand fuel, and procure at the best market price. These solutions can help companies avoid buying at the wrong time and bolster their bottom lines-and they can often save four to six cents per gallon on fuel purchases.
• Better Manage Your Fleet – After making better fuel purchasing decisions, better fleet management is a logical next step. While there are some very impressive new technologies (e.g. eco-friendly engines and aerodynamic trailers) on the market, these can be pricey investments. Where companies can get a far better bang for their buck is in employing highly-skilled drivers that are versed in fuel saving technique such as smooth acceleration and momentum control. A skilled driver can save, on average, anywhere from five to 20 percent in fuel efficiency. Another boon is keeping tire pressures at proper inflation levels as a three percent variance in air pressure impacts fuel efficiency by one percent.
• Plan Routes More Intelligently – A final way save on fuel costs is to better plan the way that shipments are delivered. This boils down to both delivering along more efficient manner routes as well as shipping loads more efficiently. There are a number of technology solutions that have been developed to help fleets shave off fuel costs by planning routes that require fewer miles and fewer stops. One of my favorite examples of how effective route planning technologies can be is how UPS saved on fuel costs by minimizing the number of left-hand turns that drivers make. While was just a minor change in the way UPS  delivered their packages, it ultimately wound up saving them more than 10 million gallons of gas.

These are just a couple of ideas on how to save on fuel costs. For more strategies to reduce fuel costs, you can visit the Software Advice – a website that reviews distribution software. The original post can be viewed at: Three Strategies for Reducing Fuel Costs in 2012.

“We implemented a GPS tracking system for the same reason many other companies do, to keep a close eye on our fleet. What I didn’t realize was how crucial gps vehicle tracking would become to running our business.”

“The process we quickly developed with our GPS tracking system is to run a side-by-side comparison of the daily stop report with our time stamped fuel statement. During our routine audit of fuel purchases, we noticed a couple of charges that made no sense. We keep a fuel card at a gas station nearest our office, and the technicians fuel up as they come and go from the office.  During the audit, we noticed that several vehicle numbers were used on different days, within a general time frame, but those vehicles were never in the area.  We spoke to the gas station manager and asked him to please always confirm that a company vehicle was at a pump before running the card. The next statement reflected a drastic increase of the occurrences, exceeding $1000!”

“After compiling the list of dates and times, we then approached the gas station manager again, expecting to find out that a current employee of ours was bringing in personal vehicles for fuel and car washes, or that a gas station employee was selling our gas to their friends.  The manager was very cooperative and used the time stamps from our fuel statement to pull a couple of the security videos.  To our dismay, we found out that a recently terminated employee, who knew the procedures and company vehicle numbers, was coming in 2-3 times per week and filling up his vehicles and getting car washes!”

“If it wasn’t for our GPS tracking system’s easy to run and extremely accurate Stop Time Reports, we never would have been able to run this audit and catch the thief, and who knows how many others would have gotten away with this for a very long time! For this reason alone, besides the several other benefits we have experienced with our gps tracking system, I will never go back to running my fleet without gps vehicle tracking installed.“

To help maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, Papalia implemented the FleetMatics GPS fleet tracking system to better monitor their technicians. “It keeps them honest, and efficient,” says Vicki Laake, office manager at Papalia. “We are able to zoom in if they are lost to help them find the customer’s home faster. It also helps us schedule jobs in a manner that keeps the travel time between jobs to a minimum.”

Papalia uses FleetMatics primarily for tracking purposes, “to ensure techs are on the job on time,” says Laake. “It works with our dispatching program, so we are always looking to see what time they arrived and what time they left a job. “We also track startup and shut down times for the guys that get paid hourly.”

Improved dispatching has been one of the biggest benefits of the FleetMatics system. “It’s just helpful knowing where the techs are, so if customers call we can use that information to determine who is closest to a particular job site,” she adds. “That’s always a plus when dealing with last-minute emergency calls.”

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As it turns out, green initiatives have proven to be very economically advantageous for the organizations that implement them. By streamlining operations and reducing redundancies, fleet-based businesses generally enjoy lower costs, which happen to go hand in hand with lower emissions.

GPS fleet tracking is one such solution that can have widespread effects throughout an organization, resulting in a solid green rating.

(Click the graphic for larger version)

In order to stay continually informed of his drivers’ locations, Carmon implemented the FleetMatics GPS fleet tracking solution in 2007. “I looked into three GPS tracking systems and FleetMatics had the best system hands down,” he says. “The system was much easier to use, and the cost benefit is amazing.”

Immediate Results

Larry’s Limos has taken advantage of several features of the FleetMatics system to monitor its vehicles. “I always use the Weekly Report,” says Carmon. “I’ve got that set to run automatically.” This detailed report provides comprehensive details of the movement of all seven vehicles in his fleet, including ignition on- and off-time, location arrival and departure, idling time, drive time and distance traveled.

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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL (1/4/2012) – FleetMatics, a leading global provider of fleet management solutions for commercial vehicles, announced today that the company received what is believed to be outstanding customer satisfaction ratings.  The accomplishment was received through a recent customer satisfaction survey that utilized the calculations of the Net Promoter Score (NPS)®.  It is believed that the NPS model is a useful and practical method for measuring customer loyalty.

In a recent customer satisfaction study, FleetMatics earned an NPS ranking of 54 which is believed to be outstanding, as scores of over 50 are considered excellent.  FleetMatics NPS scores also improved year-over-year, another sign of continuous improvement in meeting customer needs.

Read the full press release

The most popular blog posts ended up being a mix of fleet management tips, interesting GPS tracking stories, and some good old FleetMatics humor.

So, without further ado, the top ten posts of 2011 are:

1. 5 Big Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Vehicle Tracking System
    
2. The 5 Worst Excuses for NOT Investing in Fleet Tracking
    
3. The 5 Biggest Misconceptions About GPS Tracking
    
4. 5 Reasons to Look at GPS Tracking for 2012
    
5. 5 More Strange Places our Customers Have Found Their Employees
    
6. 5 More Big Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Vehicle Tracking System
    
7. GPS Vehicle Tracking Saves Lives?
    
8. 5 Ridiculous Alternatives to GPS Vehicle Tracking
    
9. 5 Strange Places our Customers Have Found Their Employees
    
10. Honesty is the Best Policy and Fleet Tracking Never Lies

Do you agree with this list or have any suggestions for future posts?