5 benefits of digital transformation for the rental and leasing sector

Digital transformation has been sweeping across businesses of all sectors and industries. Thanks to key events like the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit, this type of business transformation has become even more essential. For the equipment rental and leasing industry, digitally transforming can improve customer service, experience and internal efficiency.

Keep reading to discover some more benefits of digital transformation for this industry…

1. Improves customer service and experience
2. Increases team efficiency and productivity
3. Enhances inventory management
4. Improves equipment rental planning
5. Boosts the quality of position tracking

1. Improves customer service and experience

With an industry-specific solution, your clients can do all of the following (and more):

• Book the equipment they need
• Attach supporting documents
• Receive invoices
• Pay for their orders
• Receive notifications, such as if a rental contract is coming to an end or a payment is due
• Access detailed equipment descriptions

All of these activities can be performed more efficiently than if you didn’t have an industry-specific solution. This improves customer service and experience as everything is available via one portal and your customers can easily self-serve. An added bonus? They can also enjoy an omnichannel experience.

2. Increases team efficiency and productivity

Often, equipment rental and leasing businesses rely on disparate systems to store their essential data. Technology can centralise this data which makes it easier for your employees to:

• Quickly find the information they’re looking for - which saves time that they can then spend on other tasks
• Manage customer information - from contract history to queries they’ve made in the past, it’s all available in one location
• Collaborate with other departments - your whole team, from sales and marketing to finance and warehouse, can collaborate on tasks, notes, projects and more. And any documents are easier to share too
• Access up-to-date information - thanks to real-time collaboration, there’s no need to manage multiple spreadsheet versions
• Provide excellent customer service - because customer data is in one location, offering personalised service and quickly closing deals is much easier

Overall, data centralisation helps to reduce the workload and pressure on your teams.

Take your customer service team and account managers. Detailed equipment descriptions mean customers are less likely to need to contact customer service for help. And if customers do need to reach out to you, having all the key data in one place means you can quickly build personalised quotes and swiftly close customer deals.

3. Enhances inventory management

Digital technology can improve your rental business’ inventory management process. It’s easier to keep track of all your equipment, in terms of availability, location, maintenance and repairs. For example, IoT-enabled devices allow you to collect and analyse real-time information on your equipment. This then means you can:

• Keep better track of your rentals, particularly short-term ones, as you can see expiration dates
• Clients can receive notifications when the date is approaching and if they’d like to extend their rental agreement. This is very proactive and will boost customer satisfaction
• Monitor the condition of your equipment. You can keep up-to-date with when they need maintenance and repair work and take relevant action
• Gain more insights into utilisation compliance with operating conditions e.g. whether the equipment that’s been leased by a client is complying with weight load regulations and act swiftly in response

4. Improves equipment rental planning

Thanks to real-time data, you can better monitor the utilisation of your equipment. This means you can be more flexible when managing your assets and make more informed business decisions, including:

• Planning for the future
• Predicting long-term demand
• Anticipating when you’ll need additional equipment or to cut down
• Planning client acquisition campaigns

5. Boosts the quality of position tracking

As part of asset management, you’ll need to ensure your equipment isn’t transferred to third parties without the owner’s permission. GPS tracking can help you monitor this. You can see every equipment’s physical location in real-time, organised by type, client and ID number.

This can help you:

• Mitigate the risk of theft
• Keep tabs on the movement of your equipment so you can react quickly in certain instances. For example, if your equipment has been misplaced or if it’s on the way to a client and has deviated from the route
• Plan transportation and ensure it’s always taking the most cost-efficient and safest route

Want to maximise the ROI of digital transformation?

The rental and leasing industry is booming as more and more companies are seeing the value in renting equipment as opposed to buying it outright. Great news for equipment rental and leasing businesses! But it does mean there’s more competition and higher customer expectations.

To ensure you’re equipped to adapt to the evolving landscape, you need to digitise your business. A watertight digital transformation strategy can maximise the value of your decisions. 

In our cheat sheet to digital transformation, we cover the four secret ingredients to a successful transformation project. Learn more via the button below.