5 Ways Slow Maintenance Can Affect Your Bottom Line

Fleet drivers depend on their vehicles to do their jobs. Unfortunately, if a vehicle breaks down on the job, there is potential for your business to lose hundreds of dollars a day, with issues from repairs to compensating for the down vehicle. Even after these costs are factored into your maintenance budget, the fact is that you’re down a vehicle, causing the strain to fall on you and your remaining fleet for an unknown amount of time.

Affected Productivity

Your business’s productivity is arguably the most important thing affected by a vehicle that is spending far too much time in the shop. While many businesses have regular commercial shops that service their vehicles, the challenge is that they are not their only customers. The problem with this is that your vehicle sits in a queue to be serviced, and with the average time for repairs being around two days, your business is liable for some major profit loss during this downtime, as managers are pulled away from other jobs or employees are redistributed to deal with the down vehicle.

Stress On Other Vehicles

This is perhaps one of the most overlooked costs of not having a full fleet. As the rest of your vehicles are tasked to pick up the slack, their own wear and tear is increased for the period the  down vehicle is out of service, causing them to likely be next in line for maintenance. This creates problems in the future, as you not only risk having multiple vehicles out at the same time, but also accrue the costs of repairing them.

Inability To Offer Services

As your vehicle sits in the shop, depending on your business, you may not be able to offer your full range products or services, because employees cannot get to customers. Your company may find itself delaying or even canceling orders, affecting your credibility with customers and ultimately your profits, as your business is seen as unreliable or unprofessional. This can spiral into loss of accounts.

Personal Time For Repairs

If you’re a salesman and your business relies on a vehicle supplied by your employer, your ability to meet your quotas will be affected as you attend to the vehicle. Any time you personally spend to get your vehicle up and running is time lost with a customer. Imagine having your vehicle sit in the shop for days? In that downtime, you’re either not working or accruing rental car costs, both cutting into your profits.

Slow Preventative Maintenance

Slow maintenance doesn’t stop at vehicles waiting at the shop; it also includes vehicles that are slow to BE MAINTAINED. Your fleet’s productivity depends on it running smoothly, and a vehicle that is behind on regular maintenance is out of compliance and liable to break down in the future, causing any of the above mentioned problems.

The bottom line is this: when one of your vehicles is down, your business suffers. And the longer it is down, the worse the situation becomes. Whether it's pulling fleet managers away from other projects for a prolonged amount of time or affecting your ability to meet monthly quotas, slow maintenance is a cost that can really affect your bottom line.