Like any critical question about your business, there is not a simple yes or no answer to this question. 

However, if you solely depend on physical equipment and assets for revenue and those assets spend most of their time away from you, then your answer is yes, But it is not really as simple as that. 

GPS tracking for rental equipment is a tool that helps solves problems. So, if you are trying to decide whether your rental firm needs GPS tracking, follow the trail back to the issue you are trying to solve.  

We can take a look at a few of the problems the organization might be facing:

The potential problems of not using GPS tracking rental equipment 

• Potential Theft – With a lot of expensive equipment, you’re likely at risk of theft. If anything is ever stolen, and you don’t have a tracking device, it becomes increasingly hard to find and recover. 
• Billing Pains – Typically done manually, billing calculations are at risk for human errors. But what if you had a system telling you when your equipment was rented out and used? It makes billing so much easier. 
• Lack of Maintenance Visibility – You often think about maintenance for your equipment once it’s too late. What if you had a system that could tell you the usage of your equipment to help you understand when it’s due for maintenance?
• Under or Over Utilization of Equipment – If your equipment is spread out over multiple sites, how do you know if it’s being used unless you call all your workers? It takes up a lot of time. 
• Lack of Customer Visibility – A lot of the other issues depend on you getting the data you need to give your customers a better experience. Just relying on communication and phone calls to workers doesn’t allow you or your customers to have the right visibility. What if you had a device to tell you all that information in real-time?

These things can hurt your business, including human errors and mistakes and missing data in your day-to-day operations. Leveraging and implementing a GPS tracking device and the system can help you resolve many of these potential problems. 

Benefits of having a GPS tracker for your rental equipment 

With a GPS tracker, even if you are not having any theft issues, you’ll still get the same protection and theoretical benefits, such as Live Tracking and Pinpoint Accurate Location Data, as if you were dealing with equipment theft. 

A sound GPS system can give you the data you need for better operations. Accurate data about billing and maintenance will keep your equipment working for you so you can stay on top of all the current customer's usage and make billing easier.

GPS tracking in the rental industry also has a massive benefit to your customers as well. For example, you can share the location of an asset during delivery, so you can make sure they have no surprises when the equipment arrives.

No surprises with GPS tracking 

GPS helps you eliminate surprises. Not good shocks, like a front-row parking spot at a busy store, but surprises like a rental customer using a backhoe for 37 hours more than they paid for. Bad surprises. Like that one. 

With a solid GPS system, you will know about any overages before the equipment is returned. No more surprises about maintenance, theft, employee mistakes, or lost assets. The data GPS provides can help you do more, keep your customers happier and make your business more successful short and long term. So, yes, you should put GPS trackers on your rental equipment.

Interested in learning more about which GPS tracking device would work best for you? Reach out to us today.