Mobile workforce solution helps cleaning firm cut costs by £200 per week

When it comes to commercial cleaning, fleet management often plays a key role in terms of business efficiency and productivity. It is for this reason that The Box Cleaning Company recently installed the Reveal mobile workforce solution on its 20-strong fleet. With GPS tracking in place, the firm is experiencing a boost in productivity and efficiency, with savings of over £200 a week on fuel and maintenance costs.

Based in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, The Box Cleaning Company boasts nearly 20 years of experience in commercial cleaning. The firm offers a wide range of cleaning services including window, communal and general office cleaning as well as building maintenance.

To serve its growing customer base across London and the south east, The Box Cleaning Company recently expanded its fleet from 10 to 20 vans. With no GPS solution in place and more vehicles to keep track of, office manager Rosalyn Elderton was faced with a number of challenges. “Before fleet tracking came along, the only way of pinpointing our vehicles was calling our drivers, which was a time consuming and ineffective way of knowing which van was the closest to a given job. Additionally, it was virtually impossible to receive real time updates on traffic conditions and redirect drivers accordingly,” comments Rosalyn. “It was not until we received a phone call from Verizon Connect that we became aware of the enormous potentials of GPS tracking: now we couldn’t even imagine running our fleet without Reveal.”

Thanks to Reveal's Live Map function, The Box Cleaning Company is now able to visualise its fleet on a virtual map - on either a laptop or smartphone. This helps identify which is the nearest vehicle to a job and how long it will take for each van to reach a certain destination in real time traffic conditions. The Live Map function enables the company to redirect drivers to less busy roads, reducing the amount of time they spend on the road and thus curbing fuel consumption. Reveal also enables The Box Cleaning Company to obtain optimised directions, pre-planning each driver’s stops in the most efficient way and thus increasing business productivity.

Another way in which fleet tracking is helping The Box Cleaning Company gain in efficiency is by tackling vehicle idling. Thanks to its innovative traffic light system, the firm is now able to visualise on Live Map if a vehicle is regularly parked to perform a job (red), running (green) or idling (yellow). “Whenever one of our vans is still for more than two minutes since ignition time, it immediately turns yellow on Live Map, which also indicates how long the vehicle is idling for,” explains Rosalyn. “As our drivers are now aware of being monitored in real time, we are noticing a sharp decrease in idling practices.” Rosalyn is also alerted whenever a vehicle is used outside of working hours. “As a result, fewer drivers are now using their vans for side jobs or personal errands,” she explains.

The reduction of idling and out-of-hours use - combined with more effective fleet management - is helping The Box Cleaning Company achieve significant savings. With vehicles spending less unnecessary time on the road, fuel and maintenance costs are sharply decreasing. Rosalyn estimates that her firm is saving £200 a week on average. 

However, if The Box Cleaning Company has been able to achieve these positive results and maximise the benefits of using Reveal, it is also thanks to the free training offered by the award-winning customer service organisation. “For someone who is not familiar with GPS tracking systems, switching to a mobile workforce solution like Reveal could be a bit daunting at first,” comments Rosalyn. “Fortunately Verizon Connect offered us a fantastic one-to-one phone training service, in which an expert clearly explained all the different functions of the Reveal software and how to use – and maximise – the solution and the business-intelligence-based insights it provides.”

Among the latest functions offered by Reveal are daily, weekly or monthly bespoke reports, which provide accurate summaries of start and finish times, idling, number of hours worked, fuel and labour costs, as well as driving style, carbon footprint and productivity levels. These metrics can reference individual staff members, as well as vehicles, which gives managers greater visibility of workforce performance.