Although it is a good idea to have your own fleet of delivery vehicles, you can feel a little out of control when they are out of your sight and on the roads. Getting to grips with this feeling can be a real learning curve. However, there are ways in which you can see where they are and control, to a certain extent, what your drivers are doing.
#1 Obtain fuel cards
You can decide to obtain fuel cards for your drivers to use while they are out on the roads. Of course, you will have to make sure that you pick the fuel card company carefully, as you will only be able to use the cards at their gas stations. Having fuel cards for your fleet means that you will be able to take advantage of lower gas prices and will have a monthly bill combining all of your cards to just one account, therefore, making it far easier to budget.
As your drivers will only be able to purchase fuels on the cards, it is likely that you will make a little bit of a saving as they will have to pay for their own additional purchases rather than charging them to the usual business bank or credit card.
#2 Use specialist software
You should install specialist freight software so that you can track where each of your vehicles is en route to either make its delivery or on the way back to your depot. This can be invaluable should your vehicles run into trouble and require assistance or get stuck in traffic.
Of course, opting for a cloud-based transport management system will ensure that it is totally saleable should your business start to expand and grow, and it means that your employees get to continue using software that they know and understand rather than trying to learn something totally different over a very limited time period.
#3 Keep in contact with your drivers
You should most certainly keep in contact with your drivers while they are on the roads. This can help with their own personal moods and help them feel not so isolated. It can also make sure that your business is kept abreast of what is going on in real time. For instance, if there is an accident, you will be able to contact your attorney to start proceedings to protect your business and your driver.
So, to wrap it all up
You need to feel in control of every area of your business, and your shipping fleet is no different. Keeping an eye on what your drivers are doing and how they are behaving while they are out on the roads is essential, as bad behavior and dangerous driving can damage your business’ reputation.
Of course, you are also going to need to keep in contact with your drivers to keep their morale high and know whereabouts they are while they are driving. With the right piece of software, this task becomes far easier and will enable you to offer tracking facilities to your customers.
