Are your current delivery methods enabling your business to operate at peak efficiency? How accurate are your Demand Forecast methods, and how are you determining when to make a delivery? Assessing your methods of delivery and acting on the results can have a significant impact on your profitability.
Without tank monitors, propane and fuel suppliers rely solely on several methods to schedule their customers’ deliveries, such as: degree days, Julian date, elapsed time, weekly patterns (such as Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays), driver discretion, seasonal differentials, and also “you call, we haul.” While these methods can be helpful for servicing some customers, they are not 100% effective for operating at peak efficiency. Tank monitoring can eliminate the guesswork from these methods by providing timely information that enables efficient deliveries, stronger profits, and overall business success.
We’ve assembled a series of questions to help marketers accurately assess their delivery operations, and how tank monitoring can help streamline their business operations on multiple levels.
Are you getting optimum fills?
What are the levels of the tanks you are filling? Are your drivers stopping at full or nearly full tanks, and filling tanks that are at 50%-60%? With tank monitoring, propane and fuel suppliers are able to schedule deliveries to target those locations that allow for optimum fills. The ability to deliver more gallons per stop will have a significant impact on your bottom line.
How are you preventing run-outs?
Letting your best customer run out of product is never good for business. Monitoring the tanks of your priority customers prevents this from happening. Monitoring Alerts can be set up to notify you when a customer is nearing empty.
Are your drivers working more overtime?
During the cold season, tank monitoring can save your business from costly overtime. The intelligence supplied by your monitors can help you be much more efficient with meeting the demand and scheduling deliveries. Using the knowledge you need to prepare an efficient delivery schedule will significantly cut back the need for your drivers to work overtime.
Are you making money on each delivery?
If short-fills are commonplace with your drivers, then most likely you are not making the profits that you could be. The cost to send out a driver will exceed any income made on a short-filled tank. Increasing your gallons per fill will drive up profits.
The answer to all these questions is that with tank monitoring, knowledge is profit. With timely and accurate information about the tanks in the field, you enable your business to plan and respond. Tank monitoring is a sound investment and will, no doubt, save you money in the long run. Your customers will also experience peace of mind knowing that their propane or fuel supplier is using the latest in technology.
Benefit from tank monitors with WESROC
Wesroc has a broad range of monitoring solutions that are adaptable to the specific needs of companies that store and distribute propane and refined fuels. Our capabilities to measure, monitor, track and report are virtually limitless. Our monitoring equipment is engineered, manufactured, and distributed from our plant and offices in New London, Minnesota, which is also the location of our parent company, Independent Technologies, Inc.
To learn more about tank monitoring, and how it can impact your business, contact Boyd McGathey, Chief Operating Officer of WESROC Solutions, at boyd@wesrocsolutions.com.
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