Always at the Ready: A&D Environmental’s Upgrade

Key takeaways from this blog

1. Walk the walk. Don’t just claim to deliver best-in-class service—deliver! Building a reputation takes deliberate effort.
2. Preventive maintenance is a win-win. When you proactively address your assets’ needs, less unplanned downtime results in greater reliability for your customers and lower expenses for your fleet.
3. There’s a market for premium service. Customers notice when fleets go above and beyond (and are willing to pay more for an elevated experience).

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When a fleet claims to deliver “best-in-class” service, are they saying something audacious or empty? On the one hand, declaring your work to be number one requires some chutzpah. On the other, so many organizations award themselves gold medals that it’s easy to dismiss such declarations as hot air.

For me, outstanding service in the fleet industry boils down to unfailingly being there for customers. If you’re always (and I mean always) on the scene as soon as your clients need a hand, you deserve the title of best in class.

A&D Environmental is a fleet that embodies that principle to a tee. With some help from Fleetio, the company has been able to consistently meet the expectations of its customers and the impeccable standards top-tier fleets hold themselves to.

Millions of dollars hanging in the balance

If a factory in the Carolinas or Virginia needs a piece of equipment cleaned or a spill contained ASAP, they call A&D Environmental. Since 1992, the company has built a reputation for completing jobs quickly without cutting corners, precisely what plants want from an industrial services provider.

That’s because time is money, or, as Fleet and Safety Manager, Dennis Winter put it:

For some of our customers, every day that the production line is down, it’s costing them up to a million dollars a day. Dennis Winter, Fleet and Safety Manager at A&D Environmental

With so much at stake, it’s imperative that A&D’s assets never break down at or on the way to a job. Such mishaps can not only result in seven-figure losses in revenue for A&D’s clients, but also thousands of dollars in additional expenses for A&D (from towing, repairs, renting replacement vehicles, etc.).

Knowing they could do more to minimize unplanned downtime, A&D eventually rolled out Fleetio.

Minimizing unplanned downtime with Fleetio

Before A&D adopted Fleetio, the company relied on a “hodgepodge” of different software tools and a whole lot of paper to manage their fleet. This made accessing information a slow and frustrating scavenger hunt through multiple filing cabinets. And even when employees found the information they were after, there was always a lingering doubt regarding whether it was up to date.

While far from ideal, A&D put up with this approach for many years. It was only when the company acquired its High Point, North Carolina facility that the need for a reliable single source of truth became glaringly obvious. And so, after comparing solutions, A&D ultimately chose Fleetio.

Today, A&D has complete visibility over every aspect of their operations from one platform. This includes cost metrics for all of their trucks, something the company previously was almost entirely in the dark about previously. Equipped with that data, A&D is able to watch over its expenses at a far more granular level than ever before.

But, most importantly, Fleetio has helped A&D get ahead of its vehicles’ needs. Back in the day, the company struggled with a high vehicle breakdown rate (~5%) that necessitated their technicians focusing on repairs over maintenance. Now though, thanks to Fleetio, the company can spot vehicle issues before they snowball into vehicle failures far more effectively. As a result, through diligent preventive maintenance, A&D has been able to virtually eliminate breakdowns, much to the benefit of A&D and its clients.

Taking responsibility for customer needs

When we asked Dennis why minimizing unplanned downtime was so important to A&D, his response really struck me:

...it’s our responsibility to make sure that our equipment’s on site, that it’s running at peak performance, that we don’t have any technicians standing around and that we complete jobs on time. Dennis Winter, Fleet and Safety Manager at A&D Environmental

Despite the fact that reducing breakdowns significantly reduced A&D’s operating expenses (to the tune of ~$15K-$20K/year), his own bottom line was an afterthought. Instead, A&D’s obligation to its customers was the first reason that came to Dennis’ mind. And, from listening to the way he spoke, I could tell he wasn’t giving a rehearsed answer—he genuinely believed he had a commitment to A&D’s clients.

Now, it’s possible that the magnitude of A&D’s burden guides its direction in a unique way. If his customers only stood to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars if things went wrong on a job, Dennis might not feel the same urgency.

But regardless of how many figures are at stake for your fleet, I think fleet managers of all stripes could benefit from adopting Dennis’ mindset. Earnestly making delivery of best-in-class service a top priority was how A&D built its reputation (and, by extension, grew its business). And by treating customer care as a responsibility with the same fervor as A&D, you could see an appreciable uplift in how your organization is perceived by your community.

But, if you’re still skeptical, consider this:

…we’re not the cheapest solution in the market… [but] a lot of people are willing to pay that extra cost knowing that A&D is gonna follow through, and they’re going to meet their commitment and the job’s gonna be done right. Dennis Winter, Fleet and Safety Manager at A&D Environmental

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