A geofence is a virtual geographic area that you draw on a map, then name for reporting and billing purposes. Here are four key ways geofencing can take your business operations to the next level.

1. Improve productivity with precision monitoring.

Think of geofencing as a focused, map view of driver and equipment performance. Simply presented data allows you to improve vehicle adherence to work schedules, reduce turnaround times and ensure vehicles and assets are operating safely.

EROAD “Geofence Site Activity” reporting gives you total visibility into whatever your vehicles and assets are doing on a customer, construction or work site. This transparency means you always know when drivers arrive, depart, and their time on site. You can even see how far they drove and when auxiliary equipment was or wasn’t used. You can then use geofences to bill for time or activity undertaken on site.

EROAD “Stop Watch Geofence” takes fleet safety and customer service to a new level by allowing you to monitor time-on-site targets by setting time limits for geofences. This could be your yard, a customer site or any location where you have vehicles and staff.

If your fleet vehicle enters the geofenced area yet fails to exit within a preset time limit, an auto-alert is triggered and emailed to you.

Geofencing can also be useful as proof of service using EROAD’s “Daily Activity Report” to third parties including customers or ports for disputes resolution or recovering fees incurred by longer waiting times.

All geofenced data can be viewed at a glance or filtered down to specific stats such as the location of one truck. Accounts can be filtered by name or region, so you can focus on certain customers and not others.

2. Enhance safety. Minimize risk. Safeguard your reputation.

Accurate vehicle activity data for a specific location and date/time helps you manage risk, resolve customer complaints in a timely manner and improve service levels. By using “Stay Within Zone” geofence – you’ll instantly know if your assets are unexpectedly leaving the site. Or you can set up a “Virtual Speed Camera” on a depot, customer site or around a school or port, to help you identify speeding issues in real time and better manage driver behavior. The goal is greater safety whether on the road or at a customer site.

Protecting your company’s reputation couldn’t be more important, too. Unwarranted customer complaints about your vehicles or drivers can hurt your bottom line. But being able to accurately track vehicle activity and speed allows you to better manage responses to your customers and improve service levels.

Be sure you tailor the data to the right team members, so they fully comprehend what they’re viewing and can easily apply that information.

3. Monitor customer satisfaction. Ensure your fleet’s future.

Geofences offer an ideal way to achieve a best-in-class customer experience in a world of increased demands for shipping services. Retaining your hard-earned customers and attracting new ones are essential to your future success.

EROAD’s geofence capability allows you to alert customers with email notifications each time your vehicle enters or exits the delivery site. You can even set the geofence out a short distance from the customer site. Then, customers are pre-notified of your driver’s arrival and can prepare for intake.

This real-time visibility not only helps you manage customer expectations; it ensures each job is completed in line with your own company’s standards and service levels.

4. Claim your off-road dollars using geofencing.

Ensuring that you have claimed all the off-road refunds that you are entitled to can be difficult using GPS alone. Company and customer sites that are located within urban areas, and parts of the site (such as a truck parking bay) that are located close to public roads are prime areas for lost dollars.

A distribution center, customer delivery location, or dairy factory, where significant distances are driven within the site is a perfect place for you to be missing out on some of your rebates, and an easy one to address using geofencing.

By geofencing the exact boundaries of the sites which matter to you, you can ensure that all travel within that site is included in your claim. A simple solution that delivers immediate ROI.