Over these three days, I had the chance to speak with many of Fleetio's customers and partners – hearing what we're doing well and where we have room to improve. I wanted to share my takeaways from my time at NAFA.
EV Adoption and Challenges
From our industry OEMs, there is incredible long-term excitement about EVs balanced with the realization of short-term challenges for EV fleets at scale. Many fleet managers are dipping a toe in the water while others don’t see a current business need. Everyone wants more data, more visibility and more automation in managing their fleets. The complexity, opacity and inefficiency of legacy systems are proving frustrating for fleet managers – those refrains were loud and clear at Fleetio’s booth.
Fleetio on the Stage
Fleetio took the stage twice at NAFA – first to preview Fleetio Pay Debit – which allows our customers to say goodbye to manual invoice tracking, spreadsheets, and unnecessary back-and-forth. Our Senior PMM Shay Misra demonstrated how Fleetio Pay Debit provides payment flexibility and incredible visibility for our customers and the 100,000 maintenance shops on our platform.
Second on the stage was Senior PMM Dan Simpson, who ran with the data and EV focus of the conference to share how Fleetio’s EV customers are leveraging Sensor Snapshots from our telematics partners to diagnose fleet maintenance issues. We've seen major growth in EV assets on Fleetio – more than 200% increase from 2022 to 2023 – and we’re excited to further advance the EV fleet maintenance experience.
Open Forum with OEMs
As a newer member of the Fleet community, I really value the educational opportunities that fleet conferences offer – including the opening remarks from our partner, Ford Pro’s Ted Cannis; an excellent set of executive panelists representing our OEMs on EVs; and lastly a course on Fleet Optimization hosted by Katherine Vigneau and Sandy Leonard.
In his keynote, Ted made the important distinction that moving to EV is not simply a vehicle purchase – it’s an energy transition – and if you’re only viewing it as a vehicle purchase, you’re already behind. In addition to an energy transition, you’re buying into and participating in a new ecosystem. Secondly, it was great to hear Ford Pro’s focus on predictive maintenance and automating flows for parts and service purchases; these are core to the Fleetio product ethos and drive what Fleetio is delivering and building.
The OEM panel discussed how Fleet EVs continue to evolve and be more relevant for an increasing audience. They laid out a few key hallmarks to large fleet success:
- Urban routes of <100 miles
- State and Local fleet opportunities to capitalize on incentives
- Fleet support for EV charging infrastructure up front
- Willingness to embrace mixed fleet fuels and leverage EVs, ICE, and hybrid vehicles where it makes sense
From Fleetio Customers
We gathered a ton of great feedback at the booth from prospects, and their pains were consistent – the complexity, inefficiency and opacity of legacy systems makes fleet managers’ lives difficult. Our customers came out in force, as well, and there’s nothing better than hearing how transformative Fleetio has been for them and their operations.
One special shout out goes to Aaron Zills, CEO at TriArc Incorporated. Aaron is a Fleetio power user and has implemented Fleetio at multiple fleets – so much so that he has a separate Fleetio tab in his notebook for each of his clients. How awesome is this!
To the Fleetio Team
Lastly, I just want to say a huge thanks to our team that made this conference such a success.
- We had a great and consistent energy at our booth throughout the conference. Huge kudos to our fearless Events leader (Emma) and Social Media Strategist (Hailey) for setting the tone and creating the buzz at the booth.
- Thank you to our amazing speakers (Shay and Dan) who articulated Fleetio’s continued leadership in fleet maintenance software through our announcement of Fleetio Pay Debit and illustrated the power of Sensor Snapshots
- Two of our finest sellers (Dan and Jackson) delivered an innumerable amount of slick demos to satiate intrigued prospects, and last but certainly not least, a big thanks to our GM of Marketplace, Chad Chokel and Director of Partnerships, Ashlee Biggs, for continuing to provide an amazing experience and foster great relationships with our Partners.
Join us at our next fleet conference!
We have a full slate of events planned for the next few months. Check out our events calendar and be sure to stop by our booth so we can shake your hand.
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