Home 2 Office Water Coolers

The Challenges

In December 2014, Home 2 Office Watercoolers was visited by its mobile phone providers, Utilities Technology UK Ltd.

During their meeting, Stephen Wrest, Director at Home 2 Office Watercoolers, expressed a need for a vehicle tracking solution that could monitor his remote workforce and ensure maximum productivity was being achieved. Stephen says:

“We needed a solution in place which would allow us to monitor our workforce more effectively. We wanted to understand what the drivers were doing during working hours and manage the deliveries more efficiently. We had no solution in place at that time, just a manual process ringing up the guys and asking where they were. This was just not reliable.”

After listening to Stephen’s requirements, Andy Cavanagh, MD at Utilities Technology UK, suggested Crystal Ball’s FleetTracker solution as a cost-effective method to address Stephen’s concerns:

“We suggested Crystal Ball to Home 2 Office Water Coolers because we could see it would address their challenges and, from knowing Crystal Ball, we knew they would offer a great customer experience.”

The Solution

Following the meeting with Utilities Technology UK, Home 2 Office Water Coolers implemented Crystal Ball’s FleetTracker across its fleet of transit vans.

With FleetTracker, the company now has access to Crystal Ball’s web-based platform, displaying live location and vehicle status information, including: speeds, idling, heading, and more, plus continual traffic updates.

With this functionality, the Directors at Home 2 Office can now effectively monitor their workforce with full visibility of vehicle locations and times of arrival/departure to and from deliveries.

Using Geofences, by creating geographic boundaries around specific locations, the Directors can now be alerted when a driver enters or exits the specified location. This further enhances their ability to manage their workforce more effectively.

Home 2 Office Watercoolers is also utilising Crystal Ball’s new Manager App which enables its Directors to view key information about their fleet through their mobile or tablet devices. Stephen Wrest is particularly pleased with this:

“The Manager App is extremely convenient for us, we can now remotely access Crystal Ball when out of the office. This is particularly useful on a weekend if we get an email alert notifying us of vehicle movement because we can simply log into the app on our phone and immediately understand the locations of the vehicles.”

The Outcome

Implementing Crystal Ball has given Home 2 Office Watercoolers’ Directors much greater peace of mind and reassurance when it comes to managing the team of delivery drivers. Stephen Wrest says:

“Crystal Ball has given us, as Directors, greater control over our workforce. We are now much more aware of what the drivers are doing – which is imperative to run the business efficiently and productively. Prior to installing Crystal Ball, we really had no idea what the guys were doing once they left the depot and had to rely on phoning them regularly. Our concerns regarding this have now been alleviated thanks to Crystal Ball.”

Crystal Ball has also enabled Home 2 Office to monitor private usage of its company vehicles:

“The drivers are prohibited from using the vehicles for private use. With FleetTracker we can now understand whether this is taking place. We have Geofences in place which are very effective in helping us to monitor this. They work by sending us email alerts on evenings or weekends if a vehicle moves from a home address. This will definitely result in fuel savings as I have no doubt that vehicles are now being used significantly less for private use. I also believe that having Crystal Ball is encouraging a more honest and transparent relationship with our workforce which is great.”

Additional Comments

Alongside Crystal Ball improving internal procedures, the solution has also enhanced the service Home 2 Office Watercoolers can offer to its customers. Customer enquiries are now dealt with much more efficaciously by viewing Crystal Ball’s live mapping and relaying driver locations back to customers.