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The best way to maximise profit in your car dealership is by ensuring that every aspect of your business generates revenue on its own. The easiest place to start is your loaner car department. A dealership loaner car business is nothing without a great fleet, and so fleet management is the cornerstone to your success. This means that in order to be successful, you must have a great fleet management system.
Think of your system as a live map of your dealership – you can use it to find out everything you need to know at a glance. This is especially useful for you to keep a close watch on your expenses and revenues in order to identify profit potential and devise feasible business plans.
Here are a few key elements you should consider when creating a fleet management system
Maintenance Module
Keeping track of the maintenance needs of your vehicles isn’t just going to keep your customers happy, it will also help you avoid potential lawsuits. Apart from completing the routine servicing and repairing wear and tear, loaner car businesses also need to stay up to date regarding any maintenance updates released by the manufacturer in order to prevent unwanted trouble. Having a maintenance module that has been programmed to do all of this for you is the most efficient and accurate way to ensure that all of this happens.
Real-time Inventory Management
If you think customers find double-booked aeroplane seats frustrating, you would not like to see how they feel when the car they painstakingly chose was double-booked, or when your agent fails to find the details they request. Avoid all of these issues with real-time inventory management. You can also keep track of which cars might need repairs and touch-ups and ensure that they are done in a timely manner to avoid losing revenue.
Expense Tracking
The best business decisions are made by those who consider statistics and so you need to track your expenses, and in particular, you need to record the profit made by each vehicle in order to update your business plan. This will help you maximise profits and avoid revenue loss. You should also use this data to compare other factors such as vehicle utilization vs daily dollar average (DDA) etc.
Real-time GPS Tracking
With real-time GPS you can know exactly where your cars are at all times. This means that you don’t have any gaps in your map – you can keep track of all the moving parts of your dealership much easier by literally tracking down the most important part of your dealership – your fleet. This also means that you can assist customers faster, thus increasing the chances that they will return.
Store Walk Damage Management
In order to avoid disputes with customers, be sure to record the condition of your loaner vehicles before they are given out and record the condition of the vehicles upon their return so that you have proof of the damage that took place when the vehicle was loaned.
Fleet management is simply about finding efficient ways to track everything about your dealership. A well-managed fleet is one where you can find any piece of information about the fleet in 30 seconds or less. This is why it is important to fine-tune your management system and make sure that everything works as smoothly as possible.
Need help managing your dealership loaner car fleet? reach out to us on Twitter @RENTALLSoftware or email us at sales@navotar.com and we’ll be happy to help!
