B&K Boiler Services cuts their annual mileage in half with efficient routing help from GPS tracking

B&K Boilers Services is a privately owned, family-run business based in Blackwater, near to Camberley in Surrey.  The boiler services company has been trading since 1983 and covers the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hants and Surrey area. The company employs 18 registered ‘Gas Safe’ engineers who are happy to tackle any job from a leaky tap to a full heating system installation. B&K engineers are conversant with any boiler or heating system regardless of manufacturer or brand name.

Company Owner Mark Worthington said that before fitting the GPS monitoring solution, each engineer used to call into the main office after each job had been completed before moving on to the next job. “As each engineer can complete up to 10 jobs every day, that’s a lot of calls to answer in a week,” said Mr Worthington. “The sheer volume of calls meant we had at least one member of staff working full time managing calls and the diary.”

B&K also received calls from customers asking for a precise time of when the engineer would arrive to their property. “As we didn’t know the exact location of each van on the road, we were unable to accurately predict when the engineer would arrive at the next job and scheduling in emergency jobs was a nightmare,” explained Mr Worthington. ”As a result, we were weakening the standard of service we aim to provide.” 

Since fitting the GPS fleet tracking system, Mr Worthington said that the scheduling of jobs is now very efficient and effective, and that he can better manage his engineers. “Previously, the average number of jobs completed by a engineer was between 8 to 9 jobs a day, it’s now 9-10 – the system has paid for itself 10 times over,” said Mr Worthington. “Also, if we get an emergency job in, we can locate the nearest engineer and assign the job accordingly and the beauty is we can tell the customer precisely when we will be there.”

Mr Worthington also noted that now, when a customer rings in to ask when the engineer is due to arrive, he can use the ‘Live Fleet’ tool to find out whether they are en route or, if they are still on a job, he can inform the customer how long it will take to complete before moving onto the next one.

A further benefit to the company is the reduction of fuel bills, even though the cost of fuel is continuously on the rise, achieved through a tighter restriction on using company vehicles for personal use. With the ‘Daily Report’ function, B&K is able to see whether a van has been used out of hours or varied from its normal route. “Since installing the GPS trackers 8 years ago, our van mileage has almost halved – dropping down from 28000 to 15000 miles per year – that’s a huge reduction in fuel costs,” said Mr Worthington

A change of attitude amongst the staff hasn’t gone unnoticed in the company either. Due to the monitoring of vehicles, the drivers have become more punctual and relationships within the company have improved. Mr Worthington said: “We don’t have to keep phoning up and disturbing our engineers during a job and, by using the live traffic alerts, we can advise them when to use an alternative route to avoid traffic jams. Furthermore, we have set up service alerts for each vehicle as performing regular maintenance on the fleet means that each van is more reliable and runs more efficiently.”