When making fleet purchasing decisions, your company has to be able to determine through utilization reports your highest and lowest revenue earners. But in addition to that, we consult our clients to also review their lost or missed rental opportunities reports as well. Combining these two reports provides a clearer picture of where your potential revenue earners could be (and apparently, it’s not in your yard!).
In order for you to track exactly where the lost potential is, your staff should always record any lost opportunity. Even if you’re able to fulfill the order with a substitute, what did the customer really want? And how often has this happened? Train your staff to record all inquiries, regardless of your inventory at the time. If you’re able to fulfill the order, then the revenue is accounted for in your time and dollar utilization reports. But, if you’re unable to fulfill the request due to insufficient inventory or just never having carried this brand or line of equipment, you can analyze this data come fleet preparation season and determine whether it’s worth the investment. Is the lost revenue enough to justify adding one or more to your product line?
Once you’ve been tracking lost opportunities for a while, you will be able to recognize trends, and even become more granular with the data. Are your customers now requesting more Tier 4 versus Tier 3 equipment? Are there seasonal trends that you’re able to make out? Is there a slight shift in your customer base and thus, a shift in equipment needs? When you start looking at the finer details like this, you allow the data to tell you the whole story, which is all you need to make the best decisions for fleet planning.
