Warranty Recovery Can Help Improve a Fleet’s Bottom Line

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the little things add up.

I was reminded of that once again at the garage sale my wife loves to hold every year. I took a look at some of the prices on some of our old treasures: 10 cents, 50 cents, a dollar. I asked myself why even sell an item for 10 cents? Might as well just give it a way right? It kind of felt like it’s not even worth it for the effort it takes to sell it.

But sure enough, at the end of the day, I was surprised with the amount of money we were able to make by selling a lot of those little things. They added up quick.

How does this relate to fleet management?

Recovering warranties might be considered to be a small matter compared to the bigger pieces of managing a fleet operation. Having mechanics or administrative personnel rummage through paperwork to find each and every warranty could be considered a waste of time when compared to other pressing issues. It can be very difficult to manage warranties without a formal policy and a way to effectively track it. So in the end, many fleets just don’t do it or don’t do it very well.

But every little recoverable expense, from faulty brake lights to alignments transmissions, can add up extremely quick. It’s estimated that unclaimed warranty expenses can equal anywhere from 8 to 20 percent of repair costs, according to a national account executive at Eaton.

How Collective Data software can help

We had a customer tell us that before they used fleet management software, they didn’t have the resources or time to even deal with warranties. Once they got the system into place, they were able to recover enough warranties to pay for the software within a year.

Some of the ways our fleet management software solutions help with warranty recovery include:

  • A simple way to computerize all of your warranty records that are associated with every piece of equipment, parts, or work performed in the fleet.
  • When performing Work Orders, the user will receive a notification that the part or equipment may be under warranty.
  • View all warranty information for all equipment and parts under one task list screen.
  • Be notified when a piece of equipment’s warranty is about to expire and send it in for a quick inspection to see if any issues are covered by warranty.
  • A variety of reports to easily view and manage warranties.
  • A re-capture report showing exactly how much has been saved.

As mentioned above, users will receive a notification that the part or equipment may be under warranty as seen below:

Conclusion

It might seem like a daunting task, but finding a way to improve warranty recovery could be a huge benefit to your organization’s bottom-line. Here are a couple of good reads for starting a warranty recovery program:

What are some of the challenges you face with warranty recovery? Have you been able to find a way to successfully run an efficient warranty management program?