For the first time in 15 years, Directed is entering the small fleet business. It is offering an upgrade service plan for its SmartStart Pro. The new option allows a fleet manager to see all his or her vehicles on a website or tablet. It provides info on driver behavior, trip history and more.
The service plan, called Small Fleet & Family service supports up to 200 hundred vehicles. You can click on one car and view its trip history.
“A lot of small business owners come into the shops for lighting or truck accessories. This is another accessory you can add on,” said Geoff Weathersby, VP & GM Connected Car, at Directed.
“A growing number of our dealers are beginning to proactively search out and market to small businesses, or are partnering with local dealerships to fit out their fleet sales. It’s a growing opportunity and one where the customers generally are purchasing multiple products to be installed at the same time, driving higher sales per vehicle,” he added.
There are an estimated 12 million light duty vehicles on the road today that are in fleets of 5 vehicles or less.
Weathersby suggests dealers focus on fleet sales during an off season or quiet period for the shop. An advantage to fleet customers is they tend to be steady, repeat customers who continue to come back to outfit the vehicles.
Additionally, for most fleet owners, their vehicles are their single most valuable asset, so they want the peace of mind of knowing where those vehicles are at any given time and whether they are being driven safely.
Directed’s new service plan notifies fleet managers of any impact to a vehicle by text or email. The system also shows miles driven, and it flags a car that is idling a lot, or burning a lot of gas. It also alerts the manager to when a car is speeding. It also shows braking behavior.
Small Fleet & Family is offered in two levels – GPS and GPS Premium. GPS updates breadcrumb positions (recent routing) every 2 minutes, and trip history data is stored for 90 days. GPS pricing starts at $19.99/month. GPS Premium features more granular breadcrumbing with position data taken every 30 seconds and one year of trip history retention. GPS Premium pricing starts at $29.99/month.
The service released this month. Compatible systems include Viper SmartStart Pro VSM550 and Directed SmartStart Pro DSM550. Support for Viper Connect VCM550 and Directed Connect DCM550 will arrive in the first half of 2020.
