The use of vehicle rental management software can help a vehicle rental company to avoid certain recurring errors. In addition to being time-consuming, errors and daily inaccuracies within a vehicle rental business have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and profitability.
10 recurring problems that can be solved with a powerful vehicle rental management software
Here is a list of 10 problematic situations that can be solved or even avoided with the use of adapted vehicle rental management software.
1 “My digitised fleet and my actual fleet are inconsistent”
This problem can be explained in several ways: either you have forgotten to close a contract, or one of your customers has not returned the vehicle by the originally agreed return date or an unrecorded movement.
Car rental management software can provide you with a follow-up of your outdated documents. You have access to the list of contracts that are in excess. It is up to you to check why the contracts concerned are in excess in order to regularise the situation of your fleet. Thus, a score of your actual fleet and a check of consistency with the digitised fleet can allow you to detect movements that have not been recorded or closed.
2 “Vehicle breakdowns are a major source of dissatisfaction for my customers”
Some failures can be avoided, others cannot. In order to avoid those that can be, it is necessary to set up a rigorous follow-up of the maintenance and servicing operations to be carried out on vehicles. Adapted vehicle rental management software allows you to schedule complete vehicle maintenance plans that result in alerts on calendar or mileage deadlines with a blockage of vehicle use or not depending on the amount of maintenance to be performed. This greatly reduces the risk of renting a vehicle that is likely to break down. For breakdowns that cannot be avoided, the customer must be provided with a reactive and efficient service in order to find a replacement vehicle. Here again, efficient software will allow you to quickly find an available vehicle on your fleet that meets the customer’s needs. The software will also allow you to change the vehicle attached to your customer’s contract by considering the kilometres driven with the vehicle that has broken down.
3 “I am having trouble applying a coherent pricing policy”
A suitable vehicle rental management software will allow you to create very complete price lists. You can set up rates according to several criteria: the type of customer (business, private, account or not…), the type of vehicle, the date (low season / high season management), the duration of the rental… An efficient software will allow you to set up a multitude of rates, so you are always sure to find the right rate for the right customer. The software also allows you to apply rights and controls to control the use of tariffs by employees.
4 “My customers complain about the waiting time at the counter.”
During busy periods, your customers may have to wait longer than usual to get their vehicles back. An ergonomic vehicle rental management software that adapts to its users allows counter agents to make a rental contract or reservation in less than 2 minutes if it is a new customer and in less than 1 minute if it is an existing customer. On the other hand, the manual drafting of a contract, or using a poorly adapted computer tool, takes several minutes which, multiplied by the number of customers waiting, takes on significant proportions.
5 “I have difficulty setting up an effective follow-up of my customers in order to build their loyalty”
With more than 3,700 vehicle rental companies in France and the rise of low-cost players, building customer loyalty is a major challenge. A rental management software adapted to your business allows you to have a detailed history of your customer’s rentals. In addition, you can synchronise this software with a dedicated CRM that allows you to track your exchanges with each of your customers in detail, plan actions or extract mailing lists based on various criteria in order to conduct targeted marketing campaigns. Some software also offers an SMS module that allows you to set up automatic sending to certain customers in order to carry out loyalty actions (promotions, free upgrades).
6 “The return of my vehicles takes too long”
Returning a vehicle can be tedious and time-consuming, which costs you time and can often annoy your customer. Using a tablet application to return a vehicle saves a significant amount of time. This application is directly synchronised with your rental management software, which allows you to return the vehicle (fuel, km, inventory of fixtures) with your customer who will sign the inventory of fixtures on the tablet in order to receive his invoice directly by email. The return of your vehicles is therefore simplified, faster and your customers waste less time waiting.
7 “I’m wasting time manually re-entering my website reservations on my rental management software”
An efficient vehicle rental management software offers you the possibility to synchronise directly with your online booking interface in order to offer Internet users in real time the vehicles available for a requested date. The validated reservations are thus directly integrated into the planning of your software. You are guaranteed to have reservations that your fleet is in a position to respond to and you no longer waste time re-entering them.
8 “I am experiencing difficulties in managing and monitoring my unpaid debts”
Every company is confronted, sooner or later, with the collection of receivables. A comprehensive rental management software offers you tools that allow you to better manage your customer receivables. For example, you can set blocks or alerts or edit listings of customers with a debit balance. It is also possible to set up dunning letters of different levels in order to schedule mailings to accounts receivable.
9 “I don’t have any indicators to support me in my decision-making”
An adapted vehicle rental management software offers you detailed statistics on your activity. You can thus configure statistical models that will be relevant to define your strategy. For example, you can analyse which vehicle category is the most profitable over the past year in order to take it into account when renewing your fleet. You can also perform much more detailed analyses such as calculating profitability based on kilometres travelled and the average age of the vehicles; the possibilities are numerous.
Management rental software: the 10th problem
10 While rental management software can be the answer to many problems, it is sometimes the problem itself. Indeed, some software is very complex which will considerably increase the deployment time of the solution within your company. In addition, complex software will require your employees to spend a significant amount of time adapting, which implies a loss of efficiency. In order for vehicle rental management software to be your ally and not an obstacle to the successful development of your business, take the time when you choose it. Compare the different solutions on the market, focus on the functionalities and ergonomics of each of these solutions. Pay particular attention to the services that accompany the use of the software. Behind a software program there is always a publisher and therefore a team of men and women who are responsible for ensuring the proper development and use of the tool.
The myrentcar car rental software, which has been on the market for more than 30 years, offers complete functionalities adapted to the requirements of the rental business. Its ergonomic and customisable environment makes it an easy tool to understand for its users.
Feel free to attend a free online demonstration of the latter by contacting us here to discuss your ideas.
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