While fleets can represent a significant — and steady — profit base for tire dealers, when it comes to serving them, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between ensuring you have enough stock to meet fleets’ needs while not creating an abundance of overhead. Many fleets today are turning to fleet optimization and management platforms to better track and assess asset health, and are able to gain detailed insights into recurring tire issues, wear patterns, and replacement trends.
This isn’t just beneficial for fleets, though. Using this data, dealers can work with fleets to determine whether an asset has the best type of tire for its operating conditions, if certain tire maintenance isn’t being met, and how many tires the fleet replaces on a quarterly or yearly basis, all of which can serve to build a lasting customer relationship.
Assess Appropriate Tires
Just because a tire fits, it doesn’t automatically make it the best choice for an asset’s application. Many fleets deploy multiple of the same make/model/year asset, but the difference in operation could lead the tires on one to wear faster or be more prone to damage than on another — whether because of the terrain, jobsite hazards, or hauling/towing weights.
Working with fleets that have access to tire service histories can make it easy to determine asset-specific needs so you can recommend the best tire for an asset based on practical experience. And, while going up a notch in tire durability for harder-working assets may also increase the upfront cost, fleets are likely to be amenable if it saves them time and money in the long term through reduced downtime and longer tire life.
Tire Maintenance Education
Fleets use inspections to catch issues before an asset starts its day, and tires are typically one of the mainstay items on the list. Unfortunately, tires aren’t always inspected properly and tire maintenance can sometimes fall through the cracks — even during routine preventive maintenance practices.
Because fleets using maintenance and/or management platforms have access to service and inspection histories, dealers can work with them to determine failures in appropriate tire maintenance.
Successful Stocking
To minimize downtime, many fleets keep tire stock on hand, though those that primarily source asset service to third-party shops may not. Working with fleets using historical tire replacement data can give dealers a good idea of how many — and what kind of — tires the fleet goes through on a quarterly or yearly basis so dealers can stock appropriate quantities and know when to order more. When working with a fleet that does keep stock on hand, ask if they’re using a management platform that allows them to set reorder thresholds. If so, they can automatically order tires based on the threshold set, which leaves them with backups while the dealer prepares their order with increased time allotment, making it easier to avoid overhead at the dealer level.
Creating strong partnerships with fleets can make for a steady stream of revenue, and working off a fleet’s historical tire-related data makes the job a little easier. To increase customer loyalty, dealers can partner with the fleet’s management platform to become a verified provider, a move that benefits both sides and helps improve the purchase process.
Fleetio is a fleet optimization platform that helps organizations run, repair, and optimize fleet operations, for more information about Fleetio, please visit Fleetio.com.
