Customer service targets by mobile fleets missed due to traffic

 

TomTom released results of research they conducted across four countries in Europe which looked into why mobile fleet customer service targets were not being met. The mobile workers included; 146 in the Netherlands, 177 in the United Kingdom, 200 in Germany and 200 in France. Among them, they blame traffic congestion as the main reason they are late to jobs. Of those van driver's surveyed in the UK, a whopping 90% say they are late for customer appointments and say it's due to traffic issues. While traffic obviously has an impact on a fleet's business, the survey also found that 49% of driver's feel stressed out in traffic situations, which can also impact on the business to customer end. It was interesting to see though, that at least 21% of those stressed, actually cited that annoyance caused to customers was the cause of their worry. 63% just didn't like being stuck in the traffic. “Our latest research reveals traffic is a serious obstacle preventing service and delivery firms from attaining first-class standards of customer service,” said Thomas Schmidt, Managing Director, TomTom Business Solutions. “Traffic congestion puts significant pressure on mobile workers, causing missed deadlines, disruption to the work schedule and disappointment among customers.” Not to worry, as TomTom can offer fleet management technology by way of its Sat Nav systems. With better route planning and being able to 'look ahead' via live traffic updates/apps, I'd be optimistic in hoping that we won’t have to take a whole day off work to wait at home all day for the tradesman or repairman, only for them to show up several hours late or as usually in my case, never turn up that day at all. Although, I'm not sure even fancy new technology could prevent that from ever happening again. Wouldn't it be easier if we, the customer, could see where the driver was and in what order we were on the job list or at least have an app that informs us exactly when they will arrive with a fair amount of accuracy?

For more on the TomTom research titled "Traffic the major barrier to hitting customer service targets," please view TomTom's Business solutions press release here.