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Water control systems and plumbing company Reliance Worldwide Corporation (UK) Ltd has improved mileage logging and slashed administration times after implementing a telematics system from Masternaut.

Reliance Worldwide has  implemented Masternaut telematics across its fleet of 26 cars, to accurately and effortlessly log all private and business mileage for its field sales team.

Reports are automatically sent to the administration manager on a weekly basis, breaking down the total mileage into business and personal, based on agreed cut off times for business related mileage. Employees use a fuel card to purchase all fuel, both private and personal, and a deduction is made from monthly pay in line with HMRC Fuel Advisory rates for any private mileage recorded. As such the process is HMRC compliant.

The Masternaut system has benefited the whole business, from the finance department to individual drivers, enabling authentication of business and private mileage, whilst storing data for regulatory compliance. This provides absolute transparency and avoids any over-claim issues.

 As a result of having the technology installed in all 26 vehicles, Reliance Worldwide has also managed to reduce insurance premiums across the fleet.

 “Expense and mileage logging is a heavy admin burden on any business, but the data and technology provided by Masternaut has helped us to eliminate that burden for our sales team,” commented Sally Pearson, administration aanager, Reliance Worldwide. “The support provided by the Masternaut team is excellent. We have reduced the company car drivers’ admin workload, eliminating the pain of manually logging their mileage. The reporting process gives total transparency on mileage across the business, giving a far more accurate picture on private mileage. By streamlining the process, we’ve given time back to our employees and saved them from an additional administration headache.”

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, Masternaut added, “Fleet car drivers are more likely to use their vehicles for both personal and work use, not something typically seen with vans or LCVs. Reliance Worldwide now has transparency on the actual mileage drivers have done allowing for a far more accurate picture of business versus private mileage. For many drivers, handling tax and expense claims can be a complex and time-consuming task, providing a real challenge to get everything right. Telematics is helping to reduce this burden.”

 

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Resource Type: White Paper
Published by: Astea
Title: Forging a service and sales partnership
Download: Click here to download the white paper
By downloading you agree to the T&Cs listed available here

Synopsis:

The wall between sales and service activities is crumbling within many companies. Once largely viewed as a cost centre, the role of the service organisation has steadily evolved as companies recognize its potential as a source of new revenues and a valuable tool in strengthening customer loyalty.

However, there is often a disconnect between the service and sales organisations. Service technicians often serve as the face of the company, spending much of their time directly interacting with customers. They are potentially a valuable source of new sales leads, able to spot opportunities for new product sales or competitive product replacements, offer service contracts to clients, and even cross-sell/up-sell products or services. Most companies are not fully taking advantage of this potential sales leads stream

This white paper outlines the potential sources of new revenue enabled by better integrating service and sales activities, discuss the challenges of realising this revenue, and provides information on the tools, software,
and strategies that top-performing companies utilise to grow that revenue.

Overview:

The ability to leverage information coming from the field service organisation to drive sales opportunities with new and existing customers will be a critical competitive differentiator moving forward. Companies that leave their sales and service organisations technologically or operationally separated could be leaving substantial revenue on the table.

 

However, according to The Service Council, of the 55% of companies that are not utilising their service teams for sales, most report that this is because the technicians lack training, lack the skill set or incentives to sell, or the companies prefer that they don’t sell at all.  Service organisations also may lack the tools to turn those leads into revenue. The Service Council reports that 17% of service organisations still rely on paper, while another 19% don’t have any tools with which to capture leads.

Two types of service revenue

There are two ways that service creates new revenue. One is through direct sales of service offerings  from existing service contracts, non-contract service, new contract sales, and parts sales. The second is by generating direct revenue via warranty sales and other value-added services.

Breaking down barriers

Many of the chief obstacles to meeting new service revenue objectives are both structural and technological. Many companies are not currently structured properly to foster better collaboration between service and sales.

Technology can also play a role. The Service Council says 53% of companies lack real-time visibility into service performance and potential revenue opportunities: traditional paper-based service management processes make it very difficult to communicate potential sales leads and new opportunities back to the sales teams.[quote float="right"]Many companies are not currently structured properly to foster better collaboration between service and sales.

Service technicians often lack the tools to identify and document these opportunities, or to act on them while they are in front of the customers.

 

Keys to better service/sales collaboration

Linking sales and service requires a mix of operational changes and technology.[ordered_list style="decimal"]

1. The ability to accept payment in the field greatly expands the sales potential for the service force.
2. Companies that do leverage the service teams to generate new sales leads typically have dedicated teams focused on service sales, and create sales quotas for the service organisations.
3. Top performers also train service agents on lead identification and sales management
4. The profile of service technicians is changing: technicians are hired also on their sales skills and experience. Some companies are hiring agents with more sales experience, and then investing their training budget on service/technical skills rather than the other way around.
5.  Should the service team should be selling directly or simply gathering leads? The decision will depend your company’s business, culture, and the type of service agents you currently employ.
6. How do your customers view your service team?  If the service technicians are simply seen as people who arrive, fix problems, and leave, then introducing a sales function may not yield the best results. If the agents are already serving as trusted advisors to the customers, however, they may receive more positive reception to sales activities.
7. Evaluating the skill sets of the service force is also important. Can your technicians sell? Are they interested in doing so? What tools, technology, and infrastructure need to be in place that will help them sell effectively? Asking your technicians to sell without giving them the tools to do the job correctly will not yield new revenues.
8. Don’t let the sales strategy compromise the work your service team is performing. It may still be more appropriate to send leads to a dedicated sales team for follow-up.

In order to leverage the service organisation to increase revenue effectively, companies will need to foster collaborative environments that will encourage the service teams to generate leads for the existing sales forces. That can be done by providing technicians with mobile technology that allows them to quickly and easily capture and communicate those leads, developing incentive programs that reward lead generation, and creating business process flows that ensure the leads will be followed up on quickly.

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