Hire IT Costs

21 Jan

The Cost of Information for Hire and Rental Companies

: Image by DeaPeaJay via Flickr

Poor Information management costs hire and rental companies money!

Given the current financial conditions, it is a cost that can be avoided.

Take a typical day

Here are some common sample questions faced in the daily operations of Hire and Rental Companies.

Does anyone know where we are up to with XYZ lead, have we sent them a quote?

• Did we email it or print it and give to them?
• Can you remember how much it was for, do you know where we saved it too?

I have a customer here who says that they won’t pay for damages because they never received the installation instructions:

• Did we send the instructions to them or did we give it to them when they collected the items?

Customer says they called us and spoke to someone here and claims they were offered an extra gas bottle at no charge:

• Does anyone know who took the call, and what was said?

I have a customer on the phone - says they submitted a web inquiry, does anyone know:

• Who got it and what we did with it?

Causes

The above examples are indicative of some of the common information management problems facing most hire and rental companies. The key causes are:

• No single point of Document Storage; and
• No workflow tracking.

How Many Places Does Your Business Store Data?

Accounting system;
Customer Management system (CRM);
Mulitple spreadsheets
Email – yours and others;
Post It Notes;Hard copy files;
Soft copy files – stored in various system hard drives;
etc

How do you search to find some information if it is spread accross mulitple locations? How long does it take to find, and is it the right copy and version when you find it?

Workflow

When you allocate a task to someone, how do you do it, via email, verbal or written note. Do you rely on memory to recall who was tasked and if they had completed it?
With HireEzy the task management or workflow is inbuilt. You can find out who was allocated the task and the progress of the task.

So what are the benefits?

Well the clearest benefit is that your customer service improves, because accurate information and tracking of issues is a great way to provide customers with a consistent service level.
Secondly, a substantial reduction in wasted time, lost sales and financial transactions related to sales and returns because you have the information at hand.

Finally

There is a Latin quote, that translated means Knowledge promotes strength!
Information is a critical element of knowledge, if you have the information then you have the strength to respond confidently to customer related problems. No longer are you on the defensive with “you said” “they said”

Furthermore you are in a position to ensure that your staff are keeping on top of allocated tasks.

13 Jan

Recession proofing your business – the IT perspective

Information Technology costs are always a concern for small to medium hire and rental businesses.

Here is a very good article looking at how you can look to reduce your IT costs.

We are all well aware of the faltering economy and it is no secret that a lot of businesses are looking to rationalise their expenditure on staff or equipment. Reports from media sources, such as the Australian Financial Review, estimate that the full brunt of the ‘recession’ is not expected to hit until the second or third quarters of 2009 [AFRPg. 55 Jan 23-26, 2009].

But tell-tale signs in the market as early as mid 2008 indicated that IT managers in many SME’s were told to scale back or, at least, review telecommunications and IT expenditure with a fine-tooth comb.

This time consuming and frustrating exercise can often bare little fruit when so many small-to-mediums are still ‘cap ex-ing’ computer hardware and software. With the little money spent on already thinly spread IT resources, where does one look to improve the IT department’s bottom line?

HireEzy – Hire and Rental Software