Based in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, The Box Cleaning Company offers a wide range of cleaning services including window, communal and general office cleaning as well as building maintenance.
To serve its growing customer base across London and the south east, The Box Cleaning Company recently expanded its fleet from 10 to 20 vans. With no GPS solution in place and more vehicles to keep track of, office manager Rosalyn Elderton was faced with a number of challenges.
‘Before Fleetmatics came along, the only way of pinpointing our vehicles was calling our drivers, which was a time consuming and ineffective way of knowing which van was the closest to a given job. Additionally, it was virtually impossible to receive real time updates on traffic conditions and redirect drivers accordingly,' she said. 'It was not until we received a phone call from Fleetmatics that we became aware of the enormous potentials of GPS tracking: now we couldn’t even imagine running our fleet without REVEAL.’
Thanks to REVEAL’s Live Map function, The Box Cleaning Company is now able to visualise its fleet on a virtual map – on either a laptop or smartphone. This helps identify which is the nearest vehicle to a job and how long it will take for each van to reach a certain destination in real time traffic conditions. The Live Map function enables the company to redirect drivers to less busy roads, reducing the amount of time they spend on the road and thus curbing fuel consumption.
Another way in which Fleetmatics is helping The Box Cleaning Company gain in efficiency is by tackling vehicle idling. Thanks to its innovative traffic light system, the firm is now able to visualise on Live Map if a vehicle is regularly parked to perform a job (red), running (green) or idling (yellow).
‘Whenever one of our vans is still for more than two minutes since ignition time, it immediately turns yellow on Live Map, which also indicates how long the vehicle is idling for,’ explained Elderton. ‘As our drivers are now aware of being monitored in real time, we are noticing a sharp decrease in idling practices.’ Elderton is also alerted whenever a vehicle is used outside of working hours. ‘As a result, fewer drivers are now using their vans for side jobs or personal errands,’ she explained.
The reduction of idling and out-of-hours use – combined with more effective fleet management – is helping The Box Cleaning Company achieve significant savings. With vehicles spending less unnecessary time on the road, fuel and maintenance costs are sharply decreasing. Elderton estimates that her firm is saving £200 a week on average.
However, if The Box Cleaning Company has been able to achieve these positive results and maximise the benefits of using REVEAL, it is also thanks to the free training offered by Fleetmatics’ award-winning customer service organisation. ‘For someone who is not familiar with GPS tracking systems, switching to a mobile workforce solution like REVEAL could be a bit daunting at first,’ comments Elderton. ‘Fortunately Fleetmatics offered us a fantastic one-to-one phone training service, in which an expert clearly explained all the different functions of the REVEAL software and how to use – and maximise – the solution and the business-intelligence-based insights it provides.’