It’s typical in the fleet industry to use year-over-year cost-reduction as the benchmark of a successful fleet program. Controlling costs is a vital component to excellence in fleet management, but the value of the fleet to support the company’s goal is critical. Let’s talk about Wheels’ approach.
At Wheels, our account management program is based on a methodology called Results+, which delivers to our clients’ measurable and consistent results that fulfill an optimal fleet solution according to their needs.
First, we listen and understand why they have the fleet, what the fleet does for them. Is it a work tool? A perk tool? What’s the expected outcome? To build more productivity into the driver’s life or to perform a service at the lowest cost? Once we decide and figure out where they fall into that matrix, then we are able to identify what’s ideal for that application — optimal for that client based on their corporate goals and goals for their fleet. Then we evaluate where they are today: identify the gaps and then come up with the initiatives. The account team works with the client to achieve those aims.
So that methodology of listening, identifying, reporting back and then delivering those results is the Results+ methodology.
Doing that allows us to focus not only on the year-over-year cost, but also allows the customer to identify why they have that vehicle to begin with. If it is for productivity, if you have given a vehicle to a driver as a work tool in order to do what that client’s core business is — for example, servicing a piece of equipment or things of that nature and you need that vehicle up and running — then productivity is most important and the cost may not matter as much.
I think that over time we have been able to learn from sourcing organizations on what is important to them and it has really guided our Results+ methodology. They told us that yes, costs are important, but then what else are you going to do? How are you going to make sure that all of the decisions we are making as far as the right vehicle selections, the right upfit selections, are the right decisions – irrespective of cost? You can do that through this methodology and help sourcing deliver more value to their organizations.
How do you sell the benefits of this methodology to fleet buyers/ sourcing organizations?
I know some sourcing is all about cost and we respect that, but it’s not always the best approach. Most sourcing organizations also understand the value that an asset delivers to their organization– keeping a sales rep up and running, for example. So that in turn means focusing on productivity: getting in more revenue calls or minimizing the downtime of a piece of equipment that must be maintained. Working with sourcing we have been able to make Results+ the best in class type of methodology. It serves all.
Fleet managers care about cost and fleet managers care about productivity and delivering value to their organizations and we find that sourcing does the same. So, to us it is the same type of audience. They may need things at a little bit more higher level or with less detail but we will provide information in different deliverables so that it fits whatever those needs may be.
Wheels recently conducted its annual Fleet Summit. Tell us about the event.
We wanted to have an event for our customers to be able to come together annually and talk about topics that were important to them. I do feel that many of the organizations in the industry do a nice job covering topics like safety, fuel management, vehicle selection, and so on.
We wanted to do something more specific about the actual results that our clients are achieving and to make it much more actionable so that our clients and our prospects can come and find a nugget that they didn’t think of before and maybe apply it into their own organization.
So, instead of a broad topic that typically can happen in the industry we made it very specific. I think it was a beautiful blend of what we do with Results+ methodology and highlighting the clients that actually brought those results to their organization and sharing that with the rest of the audience. I thought we had great questions from our clients. Many said, “This is how we do it at our organization;” or, “Did you ever try that?” That’s what we really wanted: more of an exchange of ideas, not just a lecture, and a fleet topic that we have all talked about over and over again.
We have five categories for optimal fleet management: Total Cost Management, Risk Mitigation, Fleet Administration, Driver Productivity, and Integration and Control. The account managers nominated their clients and a panel reviewed their success stories to make the selections. We awarded one gold and two silvers in each category and then invited the gold members to present their stories with their account manager to help facilitate more conversation and learning.
We will be doing this every year now, highlighting those success stories, those results that our clients achieved for their corporations for that year. We got very good feedback. People thought it was engaging, it was different, it was more action oriented, and focused on actually what we all do.
Having a solid team to manage accounts is vital. What qualities and attributes do you look for when you hire account executives?
We have an account team here that is made up of an account executive who takes care of our client’s business today. The account manager is looking for – what does this fleet want to be like in three years? Five years? And what are we doing today to get them there? They are the strategic consultative arm of the account team.
The attributes we need for this role are certainly analytical, although we have a whole client analytical team that is sitting right outside my office right now that will work on that stuff. But they need to be analytical, they need to be able to take all of the data that fleet creates and pare it down to actionable items that we can share with someone who does fleet 100 percent of the time or someone that does fleet in only an hour a month and be able to give them the story of what they need, how they need it, and a recommendation of what we think we should do next and then work on that.
They need to be empathetic because we are here to listen and solve our clients’ problems. They need to be problem solvers and they need to understand what advocacy for the client means and to then work with our internal folks. If it is a new process that a client needs to be put in place, being able to pull the right people together to lead the team and then be able to go back to the client with those results and move that forward.
BIO
As Vice President of Client Relations, Laura oversees Wheels’ Account Management, Client Relations and Account Transition teams, which provide strategic guidance and analytic resources to assist our clients in making informed decisions that improve the performance of their fleets.
Laura joined Wheels as an Account Manager in 2002 and most recently served as Senior Director of Client Relations, a role in which she managed some of Wheels’ largest and most complex clients. Her career in fleet management spans three decades and includes a wealth of experience, not only in strategic management but also in operations areas like license and titling, acquisitions and fuel. She also holds the unique distinction of being the first person from a fleet management company to join the National Association of Fleet Administrators (NAFA) as a full member.