Reddy Rents had problems getting data from their previous system. Because data you can’t use is only a little more useful than no data at all, they needed a Windows-based rental software that would allow them to analyze their data.
Using Point of Rental gave them the ability to connect with seasonal renters and suggest re-renting items, helping them boost in-season utilization of various tools to near 100%. That proactive approach helps show customers they know them and care, as well – several have even thanked Reddy Rents for reaching out.
Implementing an integrated website has helped customers answer their own questions 24/7 instead of calling the counter and tying up a phone line. It’s also helped them sell used items more efficiently.
They’re much better able to track their operating costs and plan for a better future. See how Point of Rental can help you build better rental processes by filling out the form below.
Video Transcript
We’re really trying to strive for customer service and with Point of Rental and having the information right at our fingertips, that makes that customer service aspect much easier to satisfy.
My name is Bill Bullock. I work for J&F Reddy Rents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I’m the general manager. The problems we were having prior to Point of Rental was the fact that the system that we were using was UNIX- based. It was really difficult to extract data out of there in any meaningful fashion. A number of reports that were in the system were limited at best, and so you really wanted to see a report like this, you had no way of extracting the data and manipulating it. You used the predefined reports or you lived without.
We chose Point of Rental for a number of reasons. Number one, when you look at the company leadership, there was an awful lot of experience in the rental industry. That was very important. It wasn’t just somebody who was a programmer developing an application; these are people that know the business. Secondly, we were looking for something that was a Windows based system so that we could extract data from the system, develop mailing lists or run reports in Excel or other applications. To utilize the data that’s out there. So those are some real important aspects for us.
For us, to be able to extract the data that we’re looking for is really meaningful because we’re able to reach out to customers that use certain kinds of equipment at certain times of the year to remind them that we’re coming up to the time of the year where they may need to rent this particular piece of equipment.
And we can line up reservations for preferred and previous customers before others. And it’s helped our utilization on equipment where there’s certain kinds of equipment that we’re near 100% utilization during a period of time where you’ve got, six, eight weeks that those items are in high demand.
We’re able to fully utilize the equipment by reaching out to the customers and being proactive. I think it does help our customer relation skills as well. When you are proactive and reaching out to the customer and saying, “Hey, last year you rented a particular piece of equipment. We’re coming up to that time of frame again. Is this something that we can help you with again this year?” And we’ve had several customers that have reached out to us in follow ups, and they’ve told us they appreciate us being proactive in that regard. One of the big gains for us when we went to Point of Rental was being able to integrate the data that’s in our Point of Rental system with our website.
And so customers can go to our website, see what equipment we have, see pictures of it. Pull up all the rates. That’s been real helpful because sometimes people are thinking that they need a particular thing; they can look at the picture of it, realize, “oops, I was on the wrong page,” and they can ask for the right equipment.
We added that shortly after we fully implemented the system here. The timing was probably right, because we had to learn to walk before we learned to run. But once we got the website up and integrated, that was really cool. Because like I said, then a lot of the questions that we were getting on the phone, people were able to answer themselves 24/7.
It’s also allowed us to tie into equipment that we have for sale. And our website has an entire page of equipment that we have for sale. And that’s helped a lot of… customers reach out and when they’re looking to purchase equipment. So it’s made disposal of used equipment really a lot easier for us.
The value we get from using Point of Rental is that we’re now able to look at the true cost of operating a particular asset. Our old system, we weren’t able to factor in, systematically, costs of parts and repairs when equipment went down. With Point of Rental, because we have all the parts in inventory, it’s much easier to, when we do maintenance on a particular item, pull those items out of inventory. We don’t have to guesstimate on what we paid for those parts or the supplies, so we’re getting much more accurate information in terms of our operating costs.