Use the information for an employee bonus program and a cost-savings sharing program. Help employees quickly accept the idea of using GPS technology to keep up with the times and increase the financial position of the company. Employees value their jobs, especially in a tight economy, more than they do the idea of being supervised. GPS technology is just another management tool to help run the business. It can also be one that brings noticeable benefits to the employees.

Use GPS technology to resolve customer disputes related to arrival time, service duration and service location. Employees will appreciate this type of support.

Help employees when they are lost. By knowing the location of the vehicle, a dispatcher can quicker assist a lost driver. This helps the employee stay on schedule and not have to work too quickly or run up overtime.

Slow your vehicle's average speed. Get your vehicles to stay below 65 mph on the highway and 45 on other roads. This ties directly into fuel consumption, maintenance and accidents. This will save you about 10% on your monthly fuel bill. Tracking vehicle maintenance will only be evident over time. It might take a year for you to really see the difference on your P&L but it has to come if you are driving fewer miles.

Verify the accuracy of time cards. This is generally a key area for improvement. Most companies recover their monthly fee and the cost of their vehicle unit from this one factor alone in the first 3-6 months. Have your administrator compare the GPS start-stop report to the time cards since the unit has been installed. Determine what the average margin of error is and then compare that to the time cards before you installed our GPS system. It might pay for itself this month.

You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure.

Verify sales calls. If you can get just one additional sales call in every three days, you have increased the number of sales calls by 7 per month. If you have a sales call to sale ratio of 1:5 you can expect to increase sales by this amount. If nothing else you will realize a reduction in the cost of paying mileage or fuel for unproductive driving or personal business on company time.

Watch the time per stop. Service managers know how long it takes to make a delivery or perform a service. By watching the stop time they can determine if the employee is "hanging out" with customers, not hustling or not spending enough time with your customers. This ties into customer cancellations, allowances, returned inventory and sales. Efficiency is the name of the game.

Market the fact that you are using GPS technology and that you are committed to customer service. No more telling customers "We'll be there between 8-5." This is not acceptable in today's market. This will help close sales when all else is equal. You only need one deal a year to cover the cost of the GPS technology. If you run ads you might say something like: "We use GPS technology to insure the quality and timeliness of our service."

Contact your insurance carrier and request a discount when you can show them your vehicles are now driving slower, driving fewer miles and you are reducing the risk of an accidents. If your insurance company will not give you a reductions, shop around. There are insurance companies that will once you can show an improvement.

Let employees take vehicles home at night. If an employee is paying $300 a month to drive a vehicle to and from work, he can sell one of his cars if he can take the company vehicle to and from work. This gives the employee a $300 a month raise and it cost you $0. We recommend you make this an option for current employees and a requirement for new employees. In exchange for saving the employee $300 a month you should charge them a restricted use fee of about $8 per week. This helps offset your cost of fuel and the GPS system that gives you the confidence to let them take the vehicle home. The company will also benefit by not needing a parking area, won't be paying wages for driving from the employees home to the first job or from the last job to the employees home.

Use the Alert function and Begin-End day report to eliminate moonlighting, driving after hours and unwanted stops during the workday. This will save you money on wages, fuel, maintenance, limit your liability and provide for better customer service. Your driving policy must be a written policy to reduce your liability in case of legal action. Consult your legal counsel for preparing this document.