By now, just about every rental company has heard about the benefits of equipment condition photos. Numerous businesses have proven that, by documenting the status of their assets before they roll off the yard, rental firms can significantly reduce their liability and increase their damage revenue. But beyond these obvious gains, equipment condition photos also provide a less publicized advantage that should not be discounted – improved customer relationships. This blog aims to explore how equipment condition photos preserve and enhance the relationships rental companies have with their customers and why such connections should be valued in the first place.
Make Damage Disputes a Thing of the Past
Breaking the news to a customer that they are on the hook for equipment damage is never an easy conversation to broach. In addition to being intrinsically awkward, these interactions can quickly become heated should the customer dispute their culpability. Without any irrefutable evidence to diffuse such conflicts, discussions can quickly devolve into back-and-forth stalemates that can tarnish previously harmonious working relationships.
Equipment condition photos prevent such disagreements from arising in the first place. When notifying a customer that they owe damage costs, rental company staff can refer to timestamped photos to support their case. When presented with such unambiguous proof, customers are quick to accept responsibility for the damage and pay for repairs. By preventing drag-out arguments from ever occurring, the relationship with both parties is maintained and thus the two camps are more likely to work together in the future.
Reclaim Hours Previously Wasted
Have you ever tried to convince someone to compensate you for something they adamantly believe they weren’t responsible for? As you might expect, such scenarios can often be miserable for every party involved and are are almost never resolved in a timely fashion. When trying to receive payment for disputed damages, your finance team is virtually guaranteed to be run through the ringer of your customers’ AP departments. Making a breakthrough can require countless phone calls, egregious amounts of time, and even escalation to upper levels of management. By eliminating these disputes from transpiring in the first place, equipment condition photos spare your finance teams from this time-consuming cycle, thus freeing them to focus on more productive tasks.
Satisfied Customers Become Repeat Customers
It’s conventional wisdom that businesses should strive to maintain high levels of satisfaction among their customers. And as clichéd as that approach might sound, the rationale has stood the test of time for a reason. Over time, positive experiences transform first and one time customers into regular customers. This journey is pivotal to the success of any business and reinforces the importance of making customer satisfaction a top priority. By preventing damage disputes from occurring in the first place, equipment condition photos protect your customers from the kinds of negative experiences that might derail them on their journey to becoming a repeat customer.
Compared to more measurable benefits like increased damage revenue, the business advantages of improved customer relationships are less immediately apparent and quantifiable. But it would be a mistake for rental companies to discount the impact of such intangibles. By preserving the customer-vendor bonds that rental firms work so hard to build and maintain, rental companies can enjoy increased customer satisfaction and retention. That should sound like music to anyone’s ears.
