Vehiclepath

Customers react well to companies that listen. These days, unless greatly dissatisfied with a product or service, most people won’t bother to take the time to contact a company. They don’t want to waste time and energy writing a letter/email or making a phone call only to reach deaf ears.

Proactive companies that are constantly striving to feel the pulse of their customers crave feedback. It makes good business sense-improved customer service and/or products will probably lead to increased sales. It’s win-win: happy customer, more profitable (happy) business.

Vehiclepath’s current “features” list has benefited from customer feedback because Vehiclepath management and designers decided to satisfy their customers’ needs. Of course, the company first asked “Will these features benefit the majority of our customers?”

The answer was “yes” for two features our customers requested: tracking via mobile device and Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR).

Tracking via mobile device lets users track their vehicle through, you guessed it, their PDA. Enabling this feature makes it very easy to see if a driver has finished a job-right from a mobile device.

IVR gives customers the option to call a toll-free 800 number and discover:

• Current location of vehicle
• Days last movement of vehicle
• First location of the day
• Previous days last location
• Previous days first location

Vehiclepath would still be a very useful and effective device without these two “customer-suggested” features, but their addition only adds to its value and functionality. In the end, happier customers and more profitable business because business decided to listen.

GPS tracking devices have changed the functionality and flexibility of businesses that deploy fleets. Business owners now have access to information and communication capabilities that help streamline their operations.

Just consider the difference between what you couldn’t do before, what you can now, and what those differences mean to your company.

Five significant changes GPS fleet tracking has brought to business the past 10 years:

1. Turn-by-turn directions with GPS navigation units

This is huge. The ability for a driver to locate an address anywhere on earth in seconds-makes a Thomas Guide look like carving in stone.

2. Tracking employees speed

Save gas, money and avoid accidents/the possibility of litigation. One Vehiclepath customer saved $4000 worth of fuel over two months.

3. Delivery times and routes

Mapping lets you find the most direct routes for your fleet and records when deliveries were made. Ensure efficiency and deal with customer complaints with hard facts at your disposal.

4. Know where everything is 24/7

How valuable is that? If you have 10 delivery trucks valued at $30,000 each, wouldn’t it be good to know if one is stolen and you can recover in minutes?

5. Driver monitoring ensures staff honesty and productivity

An added five hours of overtime or extended lunch breaks each week adds up to thousands off your bottom line each year. Hopefully, most of your workers are good, honest people. This keeps the bad apples from taking advantage of you.

Just 10 years ago, the advantages listed above weren’t available to business owners. Now, they’re adding thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars to their bottom lines.

The benefits of GPS continue to grow as people create new ways to use the technology. GPS units are being used in phones, computers, cars and many other places to make our lives easier. And the best part of GPS technology is the ease of use for both dealers and consumers.

GPS signals come from a satellite so, unlike finding a radio frequency (as used in LoJack), tracking is possible anywhere in the world.

GPS tracking units use the Global Positioning System to determine the precise location of a vehicle, person, or other object it’s attached to. The position is recorded at regular intervals-Vehiclepath units can be tracked every one, two or five minutes. Vehiclepath GPS systems record not only position, but vehicle speed, direction, longitude/latitude, exact address, etc.

One of the most well-known and popular ways to use GPS tracking is to help people recover stolen cars. Vehiclepath customers can have a dealership monitor their car or personally view details about their vehicle online or via cell phone. We’ve heard countless testimonials from people raving about how they were able to locate their stolen car and recover it with police assistance by the end of the day.

There are many other uses for a GPS tracker, including:

• Fleet tracking
• Asset tracking
• Teen driver tracking

Vehiclepath GPS software is fully compatible with Google Earth Software and maps the GPS coordinates of the person or vehicle accurately. Fleet owners can see all of their vehicles on one map.

Vehicle monitoring systems like LoJack operate on a radio frequency signal. While radio waves can go some places GPS signals cannot (buildings, parking garages), GPS devices can track objects anywhere in the world and work where radio frequencies go awry.

Do you think a huge automotive company like GM would invest millions and choose GPS technology (OnStar) if it wasn’t the better option for them and their consumers?

Sure, you can live without GPS. But would you really want to?

Kristen gets up and goes to work in her non-GPS equipped car (no anti-theft device or navigation unit). Most days this works fine. Work isn’t going anywhere, and she gets directions from MapQuest when she has to. She’d like to have a GPS anti-theft device, but thinks an investment that would cost hundreds isn’t worth protecting her $15,000 car.

For years there wasn’t a problem with Kristen’s approach…until one day.

Kristen has an interview, gets lost because of inaccurate directions, and has to stop at a gas station for help. She parks out of the way because she doesn’t need gas and, two minutes later, her car is gone for good. GPS navigation would have prevented the theft from occurring in the first place, and a GPS anti-theft device would have been able to locate and recover her beloved Mustang GT. Kristen’s friend, who does car stereo and GPS unit installs, never lets her hear the end of it.

Tito uses three vans for his flower delivery company. Because he owns a small business, Tito tries to cut costs any way he can-using 87 octane gas, limiting his employees’ overtime, etc. Unfortunately, Tito cut one too many corners when he decided against purchasing three GPS fleet tracking units from Vehiclepath.

One Friday afternoon in the middle of summer, Tito drives home one of his delivery vans. He notices the “service engine” light on and wonders why his driver didn’t report the problem. The next day he drops the van off for servicing and, later, gets a call with a huge estimate. “You need a new engine,” his mechanic clearly states.

Had Tito used a GPS fleet tracking unit like Vehiclepath, he could have seen that his driver hit 95mph on the freeway and consistently sped on surface streets without paying attention to the van’s oil level and temperature. Now, Tito needs to buy a rebuilt engine, a new one, or another vehicle for thousands of dollars.

Vehiclepath could have given Tito speed alerts so he could find a way to slow his driver down and avoid costly maintenance. Again, trying to save in the short term ending up costing big in the long run.

Will you let the same thing happen to you or your business?

Stephen wakes up, kisses his wife and heads out the door for his business trip to New York.

Stephen gets in his car and, since he just moved to San Diego and doesn’t get out much, punches Lindbergh Field into his GPS navigation system. The directions are clear and easy, and he follows the pleasant female voice to the airport. Here he unloads his carry on and laptop before using the restroom, grabbing something to eat and waiting at gate #10.

He was originally scheduled to meet with three companies and just received an urgent email that another meeting is required. He is able to get directions through his GPS enabled mobile device and make it to every meeting on time and stress free.

Stephen, a construction engineer, while walking toward Central Park, uses his GPS enabled digital camera to take a picture of some building designs that appeal to him. (Later, after forgetting exactly where he was in the city, he is able to give his boss the locations of the buildings because of the GPS feature in his camera).

After reading the Times in the park, he does a Google search to find a good Chinese restaurant within walking distance of his hotel before calling it a day.

Search, locate, direct, done. A day made easy and more efficient with GPS.