How to be a successful fleet manager

How to be a successful fleet manager

Being a successful fleet manager, like any type of manager, requires a certain skill-set. There are many abilities that a fleet manager must have and some of these can be assisted by using "fleet management tools".

 

Multitasking and fleet management

A fleet management is to be involved in a variety of tasks at any given time. These can change by the hour or by the minute, depending on the nature of the job at hand. A successful fleet manager has to be able to deal with clients, drivers and keep a close eye on the budget. This can be faciliated by GPS tracking software, which allows a fleet manager to stay on top of his fleet. By having all the available information at hand, a successful manager can quickly relay data to drivers and customers in real time. If a route has a serious delay, this can be sent to the driver avoiding costly time wasting and customer dissastifaction, for example.

 

Communication

This goes hand in hand with fleet tracking software. Any successful fleet manager knows that great fleet management means excellent communication skills. Having useful data at hand means that a fleet manager can coordinate routes and answer customer queries. This data from a tracking system can also allow for training programmes and effective driver awareness programmes to be introduced. If there is a recurring problem with a particular driving style, it can be fixed by communicating facts from data received. Having hard evidence at hand can provide fleet managers with greater efforts at communication.

 

Team motivation

This is one of the most crucial factors in successful fleet management. A really excellent fleet manager should not only be a motivating force for his team, but he should also be driven by the efforts of those around. An important aspect of this is objectives and goal setting. A team must be kept informed at all times of the goals for the fleet. The second step is to gear the fleet up to meet those goals. By tracking fleet performance, it becomes far simpler to find weaknesses to fix and strengths to capitulate on. By increasing performance, "customers are satisfied" and this in turn, creates a much better working environment for drivers.

 

Time management, dispatch and delivery

This is one of the most important aims to keep in mind when talking about fleet management. Deliveries must reach customers in time, maintenance must be completed in time, and communication must be timely too. Therefore, fleet tracking is pivotal in providing fleet managers with the tools to manage their time. If a delivery reaches a customer on time, "the customer is satisfied, and the fleet receives positive feedback". Maintenance completed in a timely fashion means that more deliveries can be fulfilled, costs monitored and profitability increased. All of which can be managed by fleet tracking software. Fleet management does not have to be encumbered by manual methods, which are fast becoming outdated. Now the automation of fleet tracking provides us with many advantages, the most visible being fleet management.

 

For more information on fleet tracking, please visit Global AVL.