The success of your rental equipment business relies heavily on your asset’s condition. 

If your methods for inspecting and monitoring your assets are paper-based, you won’t have a clear, consistent, and accurate picture of their condition.

Manual processes are error-prone and can lead to  critical equipment issues or damages that shorten their service life, rent out malfunction equipment, or worsen your equipment’ damages — all of which can hurt your bottom line.

The good news is, using the right technology can help you protect your assets’ real condition, status, availability, value, and readiness for operations.

This article covers highlights from our case study interview with Michel Allen, President and Co-Owner of Pioneer Equipment. We cover how using robust technology can put your mind at ease knowing you have a clear picture of your assets’ condition. Read the full case study here.

Make documenting damage reports more efficient

Many equipment rental companies struggle to monitor and document their equipment condition, especially those with huge fleets that deliver equipment across the country and overseas. 

Anything can happen during transport that can cause significant equipment damages. Without a reliable damage documentation system, proving responsible parties can be challenging. Your company could shoulder damage expenses when your client is at fault.

Pioneer Equipment found a solution in Record360. According to Michel, one of the most significant advantages of using Record360 is it “Gives you cover, especially in terms of damage reports.”

When transporting equipment overseas, Michel said, “So if there’s damage in the port or anywhere that it happens over there, we have it on record as of date X, Y, Z. We can refer back to that date easily.”

Record360 allows you to document your equipment’s condition efficiently through our mobile app and web portal.

For instance, you can take high-quality videos and photos of all your gear and create a digital checklist of its parts so you can cross-check any damages that occur before and after releasing machinery.

You’ll have everything on record and ready to be accessed. 

Regarding Record360’s damage reporting features, Michel said, “And that’s very important to us because that’s how you maintain a rental fleet. But in addition to that, that carries over to an export situation where you have a record of what you did for this machine. So if there are any issues when it gets to the other side of the ocean, you go back to the record and say, this is what we did.”

With the Record360 you can protect your equipment and your company’s revenue, saving you from potentially hefty damage fees.

Streamline the equipment servicing process

Keeping track of your assets’ maintenance and servicing schedules using manual methods such as paper logs isn’t just inefficient; it’s also tedious and time-consuming.

If you’re releasing over 10 rental equipment assets in a day, you could easily miss out on critical preventative maintenance schedules and unintentionally send malfunctioning machinery to customers. 

This leads to equipment breakdown in the field, which can frustrate your customers and ruin your relationships.

This is where Record360 comes in. 

“Before Record360, we were using the Fred Flintstone method, which was writing everything down and trying to keep up with data on a marker board.”

Record360 provides you crystal clear visibility for all your assets by letting you upload and store your equipment’s recent videos, photos, inspections, and damage histories. This makes reviewing your inventory’s condition and scheduling inspections more efficient. 

Pioneer Equipment also benefited from the customized checklists offered by Record360 for a more personalized solution. 

According to Michel, “As a condition to getting Record360, we needed its software also to cover the service aspect of what we do. So besides the in and out of our rentals, we needed the app to cover servicing the equipment. So that’s one format we came up with and that Record360 worked with us to basically design and also implement.” 

The right technology will streamline your equipment servicing process. 

You’ll be at ease knowing your asset’s actual condition and avoid delivering faulty machinery to your customers due to missed servicing schedules. Using a mobile app to conduct your inspections also reduces errors and inaccuracies, which frequently happens when documentation is done manually through pen and paper.

According to Michel, “Before Record360, we were using the Fred Flintstone method, which was writing everything down and trying to keep up with data on a marker board. And so once you get five, ten units going a day, that system doesn’t work too efficiently.”

He added, “One of the biggest challenges is to record damage in terms of actual physical evidence, photos, and also reporting that damage where things move very fast in a rental world. So a machine frequently comes in and goes out within a day or two. If you’re not recording that damage, you lost that data, and you have nothing to stand on.”

Michel said investing in Record360’s damage documenting and reporting technology will both save and make you money. 

“One is the damage, which is thousands of dollars, that if you don’t record and back up your claim with any customer, then you don’t have a good footing to stand on. So as we’re charging for damages, you have to have a clear picture. Otherwise, it gets into dispute.” 

He added, “So if we’re doing it (capturing damage) on a very regular basis and recording that down, it’s actually contributing to a long life of our equipment.” 

Using reliable software lets you capture all the equipment information you need to refute damage claims your company didn’t cause, which is a huge time and money-saver. It gives you peace of mind knowing any damages your team didn’t cause will be covered by responsible parties.

Improve team collaboration

An airtight equipment inspection and documentation process gives you the confidence to know your assets are in tip-top condition.

However, achieving this requires reliable tools to make equipment inspections and damage reports easier to accomplish.

Record360 removes the complexities of conducting inspections and damage recording and reporting, streamlining workflows, and improving team collaboration. 

Michel said, “But if you have a good format and it’s simple to navigate, then it gets done accurately and quickly. That’s what’s important. And what you see with Record360 is it’s integrated all of our departments to be able to use one single application.” 

He added, “So as we have rentals going out and coming back in, the administrative side of our business works closely with the techs, with one report so that we can process equipment in and out quickly.”

The more efficiently and effectively your team works, the better the condition of your equipment and your company’s quality of service. This increases customer satisfaction, encourages repeat business, and helps you build client relationships. 

What’s next?

What challenges have you been facing with running your equipment rental company?

Are you struggling with getting a clear and accurate picture of your assets’ condition? Have you been losing disputes because you lack irrefutable evidence that proves your clients caused damage to your equipment?

If you are ready to modernize and improve your rental operations, request a Record360 product demonstration today.