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Live Vehicle Tracking Helps Trim All Lawn Service Cut its Costs and Flourish

Live Vehicle Tracking Helps Trim All Lawn Service Cut its Costs and Flourish

ClearPathGPS has saved us something like $160,000 - $170,000 in timecard padding and overtime—and now we know exactly how long jobs take our crews.

Schuyler Bell Operations Manager, Trim All Lawn Service

About Trim All Lawn Service

This top regional landscaping company wanted a live vehicle tracking service to monitor its crews, control operating costs, and build on the outstanding customer service that was core to the company’s 17-year track record of success. With the GPS fleet tracking system from ClearPathGPS, the company has enjoyed all of those benefits—and several others.

Challenges

As one of the most successful landscaping businesses in the Southeast, Trim All Lawn Service cares for the properties of hundreds of commercial and residential customers over a broad geographic area. Coordinating and monitoring the company’s 17 crews, serving properties every day across two states, became an operational nightmare.

Not knowing exactly where all of the company’s crews were throughout the day created several challenges:

  • If customers called in to ask when to expect their lawn to be serviced, the operations team couldn’t give a real-time estimate based on the crew’s current location—or let the customer know if the crew had already been to their property that day.
  • The company didn’t have the visibility into which crews were finishing jobs early and which were running late—which would help the ops team coordinate those crews and help make the whole company more efficient.
  • Trim All Lawn Service didn’t have an easy way to compile and review data about its crews’ time on various types of projects—which would enable the company to more accurately quote future projects.

It came down to questions like:

‘Where are my guys?’ ‘Which crew is finished with their jobs for the day and can help one that’s running late?’ And then there was the question that could really save us money: ‘How long do these jobs actually take?’ I knew GPS tracking could help us answer all of these.

At-a-Glance

Industry: Residential and commercial landscaping, irrigation, hydroseeding, and pest control
Fleet: 20 trucks
Serving: Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia
Needs: An easy way to keep track of where their crews are throughout the day
Solution: GPS vehicle tracking with dashcams

Solution

After speaking with several GPS tracking companies, Trim All Lawn Service chose ClearPathGPS—partly because of how user-friendly the app was, but mostly because ClearPath took a helpful, personal approach rather than aggressively trying to make the sale.

And when the company rolled out its new live vehicle tracking service—including ClearPath’s geozones, dashcams, and rich data reports—Trim All Lawn Service’s team knew they had found the solution to their operational challenges.  Key ClearPathGPS features they’re using include: Geozones, real-time alerts on crews’ movements, Dashcams, and ClearPathGPS mobile app.

 

 

Every GPS company we talked to tried for the hard sell, right away. ClearPath was different. They listened. They asked us questions. They offered ideas. No hard sell. That had a huge impact on us. ClearPath was by far the easiest to use and everything was just laid out so clearly.

 
Schuyler BellOperations Manager, Trim All Lawn Service

Results

When Operations Manager Schuyler Bell first rolled out the ClearPathGPS system across all of Trim All Lawn Service’s trucks, the first thing he felt was peace of mind.

“The money ClearPathGPS helped us save in just the first year or so paid for our ClearPathGPS service for the next 20 years.”

The company’s managers finally had an app they could pull up anywhere—even on their phones—and see exactly where every crew was and where they’d been. But that was only the first of many benefits of their new ClearPathGPS live vehicle tracking solution.

  1. Coordinating crews boosts productivity

    “I set up a geofence that starts at the bridge leading onto the island where we have our headquarters. When one of our trucks crosses that bridge, coming home, ClearPath sends me a text alert, so I know they’re done for the day. Then I’ll check the app to see everyone else’s status. If another crew seems to be running late, I’ll call the guys heading in and send them back out to help. It’s making us more efficient as a business.

  2. Saving money—lots of money

    “Because this solution lets us track and coordinate our crews so well, we were able to disband an entire crew and place all of those guys onto different crews. We were able to eliminate an entire truck’s route, which averaged 110 or 120 gallons per week (in fuel for the vehicle plus mowers and other equipment). The fuel costs we saved from this one move resulted in huge savings. And we still had the same productivity.” 

    “But the real cost reduction is coming from the fact that everyone knows we’re monitoring them, and our crews aren’t trying to claim overtime at nearly the rates they were before we had GPS and dashcams.”

  3. Added visibility helps quote new business

    “ClearPathGPS is helping us on the P&L side, too. Because we have so much data now on exactly which resources we’re using for big projects, we’re learning to be much more accurate in how we estimate and quote new similar projects. That’s helping us both win more business and make sure that the new jobs we take on are profitable for us.

  4. Real-time GPS data improves customer service

    “When a customer calls to ask about where their crew is, we can tell them when to expect that crew to show up. Or, if the crew was already there, I can say, ‘I’m looking at our GPS and dashcam data, and they took care of your property at 10 am.’ Customers are always thrilled to hear we’re using GPS and vehicle cameras to monitor our crews. It gives them a sense of security and shows them we’re committed to service.”

  5. Able to more effectively maintain company vehicles

    Just having the GPS trackers and dashcams is translating to our crews taking better care of our trucks. They’re less likely to speed or accelerate aggressively because we’ll get an alert. But also, ClearPathGPS sends us these great maintenance alerts when a truck hits a mileage threshold to remind us it’s time for an oil change. That’s going to help us get more value from these vehicles over the long run—and add to our bottom line.” 


At ClearPathGPS we help field service businesses—including landscaping companies, plumbers, roofers, and HVAC businesses and, more—improve their operations and improve their bottom lines. To learn more about how businesses like Trim All Lawn Service benefit from the ClearPathGPS fleet tracking solutions, contact us today

About Trim All Lawn Service This top regional landscaping company…