The world seems crushed when you think of it without mobile technology that is easily accessible today. Mobile technology has touched everything in our lives, whether it is the way we communicate with each other, the way we shop, the way we eat, and, most importantly, the way we do business.
At To-Increase, we offer customers across the globe with a variety of software solutions that help them improve their business. Customers in the equipment rental business, often turn to us with to further streamline their rental business. One of the most common issues they ask us to solve is that of logistics in their rental business.
Logistics is a huge part of the equipment rental business, especially when you consider the diversity of equipment that enterprises rent, the locations of the rental business, and customers.
With the many types of machinery that customers rent, the rental companies have to deal with many activities:
- Pick the equipment from the depot where it stored
- Prepare the asset for movement (take apart, assemble, remove some parts, etc.)
- Transport to the customer’s place
- Attend repairs or breakdown in case required
- Locate the asset once the rental period is over to reach there with suitable means to transport it
- Prepare for pick up of the equipment (take apart, assemble, remove some parts, etc.)
- Transport back to the depot, workshop, or deliver to the next client who rents the asset
As you can see, the number of activities that the equipment rental team has to take up is extensive.
What are the various processes of the equipment rental operations that mobile access helps?
Point of contact with the equipment rental customer
There are many points of contact that a customer may touch base with the equipment rental business. We can define these points of contact with customers as the rental shop. These include the equipment rental front office, the rental depot, online portals (if any), and also when customers touch base with the equipment rental team when they deliver or pick up the equipment.
Mobile access or Anywhere for Rental will make the process easier, providing the teams with the means to answer customer queries immediately and reduce the lag that would occur otherwise. Whether it is about answering customer queries, updating change requests, or paperwork, all these can be done with mobile access.
Processing the return of the rental equipment
Return of the equipment, whether it is at the premises of the rental company or the customer site, requires a series of actions to be taken. For instance, the machinery may need to be inspected for damages, usage (as per the agreed terms) or taken for service, checked as per safety regulations, or the pick-up team may need to replace some parts.
When the team working on this aspect has access to the equipment rental software on mobile, all the updates and actions can take place in real-time. When the information is updated at once, the logistic operations become smoother.
Deliver to and pick up the equipment from the customer
As we mentioned earlier, each piece of equipment may require different types of treatment and preparation to get it ready for movement to the customer’s site or delivery back to the equipment rental depot.
Mobile access for this aspect of operations tracks, informs, and updates all the teams concerned and ensures that none of the information required lies in silos making decision-making or even next steps difficult.
Keep track of the inventory of the pieces of equipment
The equipment rental business depends on being able to provide customers with access to the kind of machinery they want to rent. But the information about what equipment is available and what is out on rent can be challenging to access if there is no immediate and real-time update.
Often, the coordination between the front office and the team at the rental depot could be delayed due to a lack of updates. Mobile access ensures that you can accurately keep track of the inventory your business has.
As you can see, the logistics aspect of the equipment rental business can be complicated, and mobile access can help.
