The landscape of corporate vehicle leasing is undergoing a significant transformation. With increased connectivity, access to vast amounts of data, and evolving customer demands for flexible mobility options, companies providing leasing or financial solutions for vehicle fleets need to adapt to remain competitive.
Raised (and Reasonable) Expectations
Today’s clients are increasingly expecting a digital experience similar to what they’re accustomed to in their personal lives. When you can see the status of a pizza you’ve ordered—knowing when it goes into the oven and when it’s in a delivery vehicle headed to your home—you can plan accordingly. Amazon similarly provides this level of visibility to their customers for all sorts of packaged goods. Yet with a vehicle that costs orders of magnitude more, that level of visibility is still a dream for most fleet clients.
Similarly, the digitization of the client experience is fragmented. While progress is being made with providing connected vehicle data, predictive maintenance recommendations, and cabin monitoring data, each of these sets of information typically has a unique portal and a different login for the fleet client to navigate in order to learn the latest about a vehicle. Typically there is no single portal for clients to log in to and see the entire state of not just a particular vehicle, but their entire fleet.
A Need for Greater Flexibility
Fleet clients aren’t just looking for a better view into what they have today. They’re also looking for new products to augment the more classic long-term lease options. They’re interested in adjusting their fleet for seasonality, unexpected demand, and/or excess supply. Having access to a short-term rental pool with digital reservations and even keyless access would be a dream. If municipalities can offer shared vehicles, surely fleet providers should be able to as well.
Mobility is another horizon for fleet management companies (FMCs) to meet the emerging needs of clients. Offering options to clients with a mobility budget allows fleet providers to meet the needs of their clients’ employees, such as by providing transportation beyond driving to their destination. A couple of examples include offering ridesharing credits or subscribing to a vehicle (such as providing a car in the winter for someone who otherwise rides an ebike for transportation).
Increasing Value Over the Vehicle Lifecycle
The changing client digital experience, which makes technological advances simpler and more accessible to use, brings value to investments that have already been made. A vast amount of the data that’s already being collected and processed is never seen by any FMC or client. Enabling and surfacing intelligent insights based on today’s data and systems is an easy first step toward a unified digital experience for fleet clients.
Building in a unified process orchestration layer so that fleet operations can run more efficiently is the next step to being able to profitably offer shorter-term services. The more friction that can be removed from the system, the more profitable shorter and more flexible terms for vehicles can become.
Data transparency and self-service capabilities are critical. Customers expect access to consistent and accurate data, whether through mobile apps or direct interactions with account managers. This transparency fosters accountability, promotes safer driving practices, and allows businesses to make informed, data-driven decisions. The key to data transparency is data normalization and bridging multiple IT systems to pull out just the relevant information to share with the executive team or clients.
Embracing New Technologies
The future of digital change for fleet management companies lies in the ability to orchestrate complex mobility ecosystems. By integrating multiple mobility solutions, leveraging data, and automating processes, fleet managers can meet the evolving demands of their customers and achieve greater efficiency and profitability. FMCs must be prepared to adapt and innovate to stay ahead.
Achieving customer satisfaction in the changed fleet environment requires embracing new technologies. Ridecell is here to surface the intelligence in your existing systems and set up the orchestrations that can give fleet clients a modern digital experience.
Learn more about how Ridecell can help get more control over your fleet and offer more visibility and flexibility for your clients.
Author:
Mark Thomas, EVP of Alliances and Marketing, Ridecell