If it feels like inflation has your field service business squeezed in a vice, you aren’t alone. With inflation projected to be nearly more than 6 percent this year and significantly higher than average in 2023, everything you’re using to send your crews into the field costs more—from fuel to truck maintenance materials to wages themselves. You can’t control the macro factors driving inflation higher, but you can take away some of the pain cost increases cause with help from field service management technology.

A GPS-enabled field service management platform like GPS Trackit’s cuts costs in three important ways directly related to inflation: Fuel savings, route optimization, and employee turnover reduction. 

Fuel Savings

One of the most significant drivers in the current inflationary wave? Fuel prices have hit near-record highs through the beginning of summer. Across the country, field service organizations have been paying 50 percent more for fuel in 2022 than a year ago. With better information about how trucks are consuming fuel, you can take proactive measures to increase fuel efficiency—and blunt the effect of those high prices. GPS Trackit’s system connects directly to a vehicle’s engine management system and monitors fuel consumption, idle time, and how aggressively a driver accelerates brakes and turns. Simply reducing a truck’s idle time can save hundreds of dollars a week, and avoiding aggressive stops and starts in stop-and-go traffic can improve fuel efficiency by up to 40 percent. Even when gas was cheap, that’s real money. 

Route Optimization

With the ability to see the “crumb trail” each of your trucks takes across your service area in a given day, you have the ability to optimize route patterns and get much better at predicting when trucks will reach a particular client. This produces two important outcomes. More efficient routing lets you cover more jobs in a day with the same number of crews. Covering more jobs—and giving customers more precise information about when you’ll be with them—increases customer satisfaction. It’s much more expensive to attract a new client than to service a current one. 

Employee Turnover Reduction

Inflation pressure hits workers, too. When costs rise dramatically–and the labor market is tight–talented, experienced crew members will be tempted to change to a better (or more lucrative) position. Cost reduction in areas like fuel helps leave some room in the budget to retain top crew members—and good field service management technology gives you the ability to identify which crew members are doing the most to add to your bottom line. Many field service organizations use a “driver scorecard” to measure crew safety and efficiency, and reward crews that perform well on those metrics with bonuses and other spliffs. Top performing crew members want to work at organizations that recognize and reward that performance. Field service management technology helps you keep track of the metrics that matter, both to your business and to those top performers. 

For more information about how GPS Trackit’s field service management platform can help you fight inflation, schedule a free demo with a Fleet Advisor.