Thinking of the 12 Days of Christmas song, I thought I would substitute 12 hopefully smile-generating complaints that I’ve heard customers say. You’re lucky I decided not share this as a video since I’m banned from most karaoke clubs… Perhaps you and your staff have heard some of these comments/responses.
GF just released the annual survey for Public Fleets. 218 fleets responded to the survey and the results should indicate a reasonable cross section of the 3,000+ professionally managed fleets across the country.
When you’re finally ready to retire, to hunt and fish more, to set in the shade and drink more Arnie Palmers, are you going to trust your professional legacy to the hands of your successor or are you going to worry about it.
I’m guessing your first reaction was – huh? Nobody OVER-maintains their fleet…
In today’s cost-conscience fleet industry poor performing fleet managers don’t last long. It’s a job-health exercise for each of us to regularly stop and check the fleet orchard for low hanging fruit. We should all be in the habit of stepping back every quarter and searching our entire agency for fleet related deficiencies, fix the easy ones first and form strategies to address any others.
I worked for a fleet manager once who believed if anyone else in the organization knew what he knew, he would no longer be needed. When he left the organization and I was chosen as his replacement, I didn’t have a clue what he did or how he did it. I thought I did but hind-sight is 20-20. Because of his unfounded fear, I was doomed to make countless mistakes, costing the agency significant capital, which could have prevented if my former boss had been willing to share his knowledge.
After years of witnessing customer’s attempt to prove their superior diagnostic skills and automotive knowledge, you will hear some doozies. Sometimes your first inclination is to correct a customer’s error in judgment.
“Mr. Kibler, my name is [so-and-so] and I have a fuel additive which will save the City thousands of dollars per year on fuel costs.” In the past 40 years, I’ve heard that promise at least 200 times and can honestly say after testing countless “guaranteed” fuel saving additives and devices, not one increased the MPG on any vehicle we’ve tested. The sad reality in each of these instances is the salesperson completely believed in their product and was certain their promised improvement would happe
These scenarios are real-life fleet situations from fleet user customers. Sometimes fleet policy does not address ways to deal with these unplanned challenges. I’ve scaled down the details to keep the blog short. Please suggest a possible solution as though it was a request from one of your fleet’s user departments.
Thinking of the 12 Days of Christmas song, I thought I would substitute 12 smile-generating complaints that I’ve heard customers responded with. You’re lucky I decided not share it as lyrics since I’m banned from karaoke clubs… Perhaps you and your staff have heard some of these comments/responses. After all, if our customers weren’t expected to diagnose their own problems, how would we know that they were fleet experts.
These scenarios are real-life fleet situations from fleet user customers. Sometimes fleet policy does not address ways to deal with these unplanned challenges. I’ve scaled down the details to keep the blog short. Please suggest a possible solution as though it was a request from one of your fleet’s user departments.
These scenarios are real-life fleet situations from fleet user customers. Sometimes fleet policy does not address ways to deal with these unplanned challenges. I’ve scaled down the details to keep the blog short. Please suggest a possible solution as though it was a request from one of your fleet’s user departments.
While attending the Green Fleet Conference in Chicago on 10/3/2012, I had the privilege of hearing Mr. John Davis give the keynote address (the creator, producer and host for the weekly TV show MotorWeek). Mr. Davis spoke on electric vehicle (BEV) technology and hybrid vehicle (HEV) technology and ultra low emission vehicles (ULEV). John is a dynamic speaker and literally erupts with enthusiasm about cars.
In the last 10-years or so of my career, I’ve paid close attention to those private sector fleet managers whom I assumed had no previous technical background in the automotive or diesel industry.
Each fleet manager or any manager for that matter has a unique style of leading his/her team.