If you have a fleet, you may already know how difficult managing costs can be. Even if you teach your drivers all the best practices and invest in the proper tools for management, it seems like there’s always something that goes wrong at the wrong time. Thankfully, there are many ways that you can keep your costs to a minimum, and some of them might be much simpler than you thought. Let’s take a look at a few easy ways that you can cut your fleet costs.
Find Better Insurance
If you’ve picked the first insurer you came across or went by someone’s recommendations, there’s a strong chance that you can get a better deal elsewhere. This is why you should consider looking around and comparing deals.
If you want to get fleet insurance for your business at the lowest price possible, we suggest you use a comparison site like quotezone.co.uk. They will allow you to compare fleet insurance quotes from their wide network of insurers. All you need to do is fill a simple form and they will give you a few quotes along with the details of your coverage.
Remove Vehicle Choice
Going with one job requirement vehicle and one management model could be the boldest, yet most efficient way to reduce your costs. Employees may complain and you may have concerns about recruitment, but all of these will be alleviated by the fact that they’ll be able to enjoy much better vehicles. That’s because you’ll be able to benefit from economies of scale, savings, and additional purchasing power.
Look at the Whole Life Cost of a Vehicle
One of the biggest mistakes fleet managers make when choosing vehicles is only checking the price or P11D rating. But there are so many other things that go into the cost of a vehicle over its lifetime. You have to factor in how much these vehicles cost to insure, fuel costs, maintenance costs, cost and availability of parts, etc. This is why the contract hire provider you work with should use financial modelling software to know how much a vehicle will cost you during its time in your fleet.
Reduce Fuel Consumption
You and your fleet of drivers have to take the steps necessary to keep fuel costs to a minimum. You first have to teach your drivers to improve their driving habits and make sure that you monitor them.
Monitoring is essential, as you’ll be able to see exactly how they are performing, but also how they’re using the vehicle. Some may have the bad habit of idling their vehicles when stopped, and this alone can ramp up your fuel costs if you have a large fleet. You need to check that they respect speed limits and don’t accelerate too fast for no reason.
You also have to stay on top of your maintenance schedule. Vehicles that run well use less fuel. Something like poor alignment or bad tyres could have more of an effect than you think. Even underinflated tyres can increase your fleet management costs, so don’t take this part lightly.
If fleet costs are a major issue for you, we suggest you follow these few tips. Continue to look for new ways to save and use your vehicles as responsibly as possible.
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