Diamond Freight

The Challenges

Diamond Freight operates its own fleet of vehicles in order to deliver haulage services throughout the UK. Andy Fowell, Diamond Freight’s Logistics Manager, required a vehicle tracking solution to address a number of challenges. He wanted to streamline communication processes between the drivers and management, to cut down on phone calls, and receive location updates more promptly. This would improve Diamond Freight’s customer service processes and enable it to more efficiently respond to customer enquiries.

Diamond Freight already had a vehicle tracking solution in place but it was proving inadequate. The existing system had reliability issues and poor customer service. Diamond Freight decided this needed addressing and began to search the market for a more reliable and effective solution.

The Solution

After making the decision to discontinue with its existing tracking supplier, Diamond Freight implemented Crystal Ball’s Fleet Tracker solution in October 2015, an established and fully comprehensive fleet tracking system.

“We were so impressed with the Crystal Ball solution that we cancelled all the meetings we had lined up with other suppliers and decided to install FleetTracker across our entire fleet,” says Andy Fowell.

FleetTracker provides Diamond Freight with all the essential functionality they required.

Displayed on a large screen and each individual desktop within the control room, FleetTracker provides management with live locations of their vehicles on a detailed mapping system ensuring full visibility of their workforce.

Crystal Ball’s extensive reporting suite enables company administrators to access reports as and when required. This includes a key reporting tool: the timesheet reports, which are scheduled and delivered by email to the relevant managers. This is useful for ensuring drivers are working the hours they report.

Using ‘geofences’, virtual geographic boundaries created around specific locations, management is now alerted when a driver arrives at a customer location. Andy comments:

“We have found the geofence feature to be very useful; this is not something the previous tracking system could offer. We are now alerted when a driver has entered or exited a customer’s premises. This has proved useful in knowing when a driver has arrived at a customer location and when they will next be available.”

FleetTracker’s journey history ‘snail-trail’ data allows administrators to replay a specific journey. This feature has recently proved very useful in resolving a customer query, as Andy explains:

“We experienced an issue a couple of weeks ago. A customer rang us to tell us we hadn’t delivered some goods, and that the driver had not arrived at the site. Thankfully, we could access the driver’s journey history for that particular day and share with the customer the data which shows the vehicle arriving at the site. This resolved the issue immediately. However, without Crystal Ball this may not have been as simple to resolve.”

The Outcome

FleetTracker has directly addressed the challenges Andy and his team had previously been facing.

Customer satisfaction is of paramount importance to Diamond Freight. Now, thanks to the regular location updates provided by the Crystal Ball system, it is able to provide customers with a smooth and faultless service; offering location data and arrival estimates as and when a customer requires.

Andy Fowell is thrilled to have received a reduction in insurance premiums since installing Crystal Ball’s FleetTracker on his fleet of vehicles.

With the live traffic updates that Crystal Ball provides, Andy has also noticed a more efficient workforce. He says:

“The regular traffic updates and live traffic information provided by the system has been a huge benefit to us. We did not have this feature with our old tracking system and we believe it is fantastic. We can now divert drivers if they are heading towards a congested area and advise them of the quickest route. This ensures our guys are working to maximum efficiency and, as a result, they are now arriving at jobs much faster and therefore working more productively. This has proved an extremely useful and effective feature.”

Additional Comments

Andy concludes:

“Crystal Ball’s vehicle tracking solution is far superior to our previous system. It has proved its reliability and the customer service is fantastic, as promised. I would definitely recommend Crystal Ball to other businesses.”