S&R Towing

The Company

S&R Towing was established in 1985 by owners Steve Dugan and Rusty Russell with only one tow truck. Today the company has a 45-truck fleet, nine locations and is one of the largest towing and recovery operations in Southern California. S&R Towing’s success can be attributed to its investment in the best equipment and personnel to provide customers with professional, reliable, timely service at a competitive price.

The Challenge

S&R Towing averages between 75 and 100 tows a day across its locations and serves a large rural population. With a large area and distances to travel, the company depends on its dispatch and fleet management technology to allow it to communicate effectively with its drivers and customers. S&R has long relied on fleet tracking, and adopted Webfleet in 2015.

The Solution

S&R Towing has been a happy Webfleet customer since day one. However, it has struggled to find the same kind of relationship with a dispatch vendor. Dispatch is critical business software. We’ve tried three different software vendors, says Rusty Russell, co-owner of S&R Towing.

S&R recently adopted TowBook. Rusty loves the simplicity of TowBook’s integration with Webfleet. It took 15 minutes to set up and it is so easy to use. The TowBook/Webfleet integration is the best I’ve seen. In the past we would have to put the customer on hold, call up the driver, get their location and an estimated ETA. Now, that information is available in both systems. We can dispatch the closest vehicle and give our customer a precise ETA, says Rusty.

Rusty notes he’s always able to depend on Webfleet. The team at Webfleet has never let me down. Webfleet has offered an integration into every dispatch software solution I’ve tried. Our Webfleet sales rep was always willing to work with me to source the right vendor partner and the right dispatch application for our business. He always had our best interests in mind.

S&R has recently implemented rear and driver camera systems for its towing vehicles. It’s early days, but the combination of Webfleet and the cameras recently caught an incident of reckless driving. Rusty explains, I received a Webfleet alert that one of my drivers was doing 40 MPH on a dirt road. I pulled up camera footage and he was clearly driving dangerously. I was able to call the driver right away and correct that behavior. Let’s just say he’ll never be doing that again.

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Pine Tree Food Equipment

The Company

Pine Tree Food Equipment has been providing quality repair service for commercial cooking equipment since 1989. The company has grown over the years and currently employs 35 people and has three locations in Gray, Brewer and Saco, Maine. Pine Tree has been a member of the Commercial Food Equipment Service Association (CFESA) since 1989, and became a CFESA certified company in March 2009. Pine Tree’s 21 service technicians are state licensed in gas, steam, refrigeration and electric appliance service and installation serving thousands of customers across the state of Maine, from supermarket chains, to food franchises to convenience stores and gas stations.

The Challenge

Before implementing Webfleet for fleet management, Pine Tree’s dispatch team were forced to use old-fashioned phone calls to pinpoint the location of service technicians. Our customers would call and want to know when a tech would be arriving on site, or our dispatch team would want an estimate from the guys on how long they’d be out on a call. Everything was based on guesswork and there were a heck of a lot of calls back and forth to track people down, says Dan Poulin, Vice President of Operations & Service for Pine Tree Food Equipment.

In addition, the firm frequently faced questions from customers about their billable services. Customers wanted detailed accounting of a technician’s arrival and time spent on site. Without any way of documenting and time stamping each service call, Dan and his team had no way of backing up their billings other than relying on a service technician’s word.

The Solution

Pine Tree began using Webfleet in 2009. Initially, the firm leveraged the fleet management solution’s GPS capabilities for location tracking. Over time, however, Pine Tree expanded its use of the Webfleet platform to predict a technician’s estimated time of arrival on job site, to timestamp time spent on a service call, to monitor and track driving behaviors such as excessive speeding and idle times, and to provide maintenance notifications to drivers. Webfleet has saved us so much time and paperwork, says Poulin. We are now able to give more accurate ETAs to our customers and answer customers’ questions related to time spent on service calls. Those efficiencies alone probably paid for the system in the first year.

The simple concept of maintenance reminders has offered a huge business boost for Pine Tree. In our business, your vehicle is your lifeline. If you don’t have a vehicle on the road, you are unable to work. We drive our vehicles up to and beyond 300,000 miles and when they are well maintained, you can do that.

Through integration with their dispatching system, Pine Tree’s dispatch team can send work orders directly to service techs via the PRO 7250 Driver Terminal. With one touch of a button, we can send a service call out to a driver. The driver then acknowledges the job, completes the call and updates the work order with their notes. All that information flows directly back into the dispatch system.

Drivers were initially wary of the Webfleet system, but after six months found they couldn’t live without it. They freak out if the system ever goes down, chuckles Poulin. Some use it to find the best routes to their destination. Others use it for traffic alerts or to find the best gas prices. Everyone sees value.

Dispatch uses their integrated dispatch system and Webfleet solution to optimize routes, which helps to increase efficiency and contributes to better customer service. They have the Webfleet screen open constantly, so can see driver locations. This means they can take advantage of a driver’s location to get to a customer’s door faster. For instance, they might get a service call, and note that a driver is passing through the town at that moment and able to swing by. It saves our drivers from doubling back and the customer gets help more quickly.

Overall, Pine Tree has realized a huge customer service advantage from using Webfleet. On average, our guys do 4 to 8 service calls a day, says Dan Poulin. Prior to using fleet management, we were getting through those calls, but it was a 12 hour day for my guys, which meant we were paying $400 to $500 a day in overtime, plus associated fuel costs. Now, our technicians are back to working an 8 hour day. For a small business, that’s a significant cost savings -- especially when gas prices were almost $4 a gallon.

Poulin also believes Pine Tree’s use of Webfleet has helped the business grow. Before Webfleet, we were 6-8 technicians. We’ll soon be at 23 and we’re opening a third location. Our productivity and efficiency has gone way up.

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Adkison Towing

The Company

Adkison Towing Company has been providing towing services to Jacksonville, Florida motorists since 1998. The company’s fleet of 16 flatbed tow trucks, wheel lift trucks (quick pick) and heavy wreckers is running hard – supported by a 24 hour dispatch center that is always on/always available to field customer calls for towing assistance.

The Challenge

For most fleets, fleet tracking can be simplified down to two key things: knowing the location of drivers and vehicles, and dispatching jobs. Towing business operators, however, have extra needs. They need to ensure that power take off (PTO) engagement correlates to the number of jobs dispatched to a truck. They also need to monitor a driver/vehicle’s movements in detail. And of course, they want to know if their drivers are operating responsibly on the road, how their vehicles are performing, and if their business is running with optimum efficiency.

Like most towing businesses, Adkison Towing understands that technology now plays a significant role in running their business. To run the core business, Adkison uses Tow123 (powered by ADD), a web-based tow management platform offering digital dispatch and comprehensive lot management capabilities. Tow123 integrates with physical GPS units installed within 11 of Adkison’s towing vehicles, offering two-way, real-time communication between the dispatch team issuing job orders, and the driver and vehicle.

The Solution

Adkison Towing became a Webfleet customer in May 2014. The move to the Webfleet SaaS solution provided Adkison with a much stronger solution offering near real-time GPS tracking, comprehensive telematics, driver coaching and robust reports and analytics.

Using the combination of Webfleet and Tow123, we are able to track the location of our trucks every 10 seconds, and everything is time stamped, explains Marshall.

The integration with the Tow123 towing dispatch system, gives Marshall all the information he needs, presented in one screen. Because I can send and receive calls and quickly see where drivers are, I went from 55 calls a day to 100-120 calls a day without any extra office personnel, says Marshall. In our business, time is money. We literally may have 20 seconds to take a phone call. So any extra steps we can avoid, helps to keep the business efficient and productive.

Webfleet also helps Marshall monitor the overall health of his fleet. Using Webfleet and OptiDrive 360, I can track key information from fuel consumption, to detailed driving behavior that goes beyond location including: harsh braking, harsh steering, idling, engine diagnostic alerts, separate idling from standstill, to monitor a guy’s gear shifting, and to see if he’s maintaining a constant speed or coasting. These factors all impact vehicle maintenance and can contribute to fuel consumption (or savings).

Within the cab Marshall uses Webfleet’s OptiDrive 360, which provides his drivers with direct feedback during and after a trip to encourage responsible and safe driving behaviors. It’s working great and is standard in our vehicles. It allows our drivers to focus on the job at hand, and there’s no dispute. If the system detects harsh braking, or over-idling it is there to remind the driver right away. We don’t feel like we’re having to hang over their shoulder all the time acting like the bad guy.

As a business owner, Marshall wants to manage his fleet in detail. Webfleet goes above and beyond in that regard. I know how trucks are operating, whether they are on time, and if they are meeting objectives for the day. We can see when the PTO (Power Take Off) has been placed in operation showing a vehicle is being loaded or unloaded, which keeps our drivers honest at all times. He also points out that he can readily access this information from his iPhone. I can be anywhere in the world, and know where my drivers are and what’s going on with my business.

The historical information gathered within Webfleet also helps Marshall defend his business and his drivers’ reputation. If the business receives a compliant about a driver, he can quickly validate speeding, locations, and operations of equipment on the truck. The ability to defend our business and drivers with accurate information logged in Webfleet alone is worth the investment in the fleet tracking solution.

With Webfleet, I have finally found a system that helps my business be as productive as possible. Every day is different for us. But having more complete visibility allows my office and I to adapt more easily in order to hit our efficiency goals.

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Cutting your fuel costs is just the beginning

Cutting your fuel costs is just the beginning

Cutting your fuel costs is just the beginning

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