Equipment Rental Inspection

With competition in the equipment rental industry steadily growing, offering an exceptional rental experience for your customers is more critical than ever.

For your rental business to thrive you need reliable, repeatable, and efficient rental management tools to streamline your processes. And one tool that can drive success and growth for any rental business is cutting-edge inspection software.

With the right inspection software and streamlined processes you can:

• Cut costs
• Maximize your ROI
• Get more mileage out of your client relationships
• Increase your equipment rental revenue
• Position your company for predictable growth

This article offers insights from our case study interview with Hunter Hinson, Corporate Rental Manager at Flint Equipment Co, a John Deere dealership with locations in three states and 450+ rental assets. The interview is packed with practical insights to help streamline your rental management.

Streamline the rental process

Many rental companies continue to manage their equipment rentals manually or with inefficient tools.

For example, they use basic emailing systems to keep tabs on equipment status and send contracts. They use an assortment of digital cameras and shared drives to document unit conditions, and often use spreadsheets to organize their clients and rental details.

At Flint Equipment Co., photo and written documentation and reporting were cumbersome and inefficient. Hinson says, “Everything was done on a digital camera. Our pictures had to be individually uploaded by attaching the camera to a USB cord, then to a computer. We also had a separate document stating where the machine came from, what its fuel level was, who brought it back, etc.”

These manual processes take time and effort and increase your operational expenses — which ultimately hurts the bottom line.

That’s why a simpler, cost-efficient way to manage your rentals is by using reliable software with automation features, comprehensive dashboards, and other powerful capabilities.

The Record360 app is one such tool.

Record360 helps us get things done more quickly, more easily, as photos are uploaded

It allows you to inspect your equipment remotely and include customized, electronic inspection forms and checklists to speed up your rental processes.

It synchronizes your data, files, and tasks from any digital device — a smartphone, tablet, desktop or laptop computer.

Plus, you can capture high-resolution photos and videos, upload them to the cloud, and instantly alert your team members or customers of any damage.

Hinson describes how Record360 turned their workflows around:

“Record360 helps us get things done more quickly, more easily, as photos are uploaded [in the cloud]… I’m not getting pools of emails with just pictures and another of the checklist. No phone calls to say, ‘Hey, how many gallons of fuel did we put in this machine?’ The application has it all right there. I don’t have to call anybody. They just know how to do it. And I know where to find it.” Read the full case study here.

Protect your rental equipment

When renting out your equipment, your clients can also pose the biggest threat to the condition of that equipment. They can break or lose parts, impacting your primary revenue-generating assets.

If you use manual methods to protect your equipment’s condition while in your clients’ hands, you can get inaccurate reports, detect client-inflicted damages too late, and assign repair expenses to the wrong party (including your company).

Reliable equipment rental software can help you avoid all those potential pitfalls. You’ll have a more solid, documented guarantee of your asset’s status before releasing it to your clients.

Hinson cites how Record360 can help their company handle that scenario:

Record360 will track if it comes back with the same dent and cracked mirror

“A machine can go out with, say, a dent or a broken mirror, and Record360 will track if it comes back with the same dent and cracked mirror. The shop can say, ‘Oh, well, the customer had that. They’re the ones liable for it.’

“I can say ‘No, it was like that before it went to them, so the costs for the repairs are not going to go to them,’ but to this previous customer who actually did the damages.”

The Record360 app becomes a type of preventative insurance policy for the rental companies who use it.

Besides using the right equipment rental inspection software, you can also do the following:

• Register your equipment with the American Rental Association (ARA). ARA members can list up to 1,000 pieces of their mobile, off-road machines on the National Equipment Register’s database. Law enforcement officers can access it 24/7 and more quickly recover any recorded asset that the database reports as stolen.
• Enforce proper documentation trails. Keep track of your clients, their contact details, and their identification measures.
• Apply for insurance. Protect your business from financial and equipment losses by getting insurance, conversion, and business income coverage.

Through measures like these, you can document your equipment’s condition and safeguard innocent parties from incurring losses due to false claims.

Improve collaboration within your team

Managing rentals without reliable mechanisms in place for your staff workflows and communications can result in operational inefficiencies and communication breakdowns.

This leads to poor performance and service delivery that can wreck your client relationships and customer satisfaction.

Prevent this by organizing and clarifying your team workflows. Make all relevant information visible to the concerned parties when they need it.

Hinson explains that he can do that and his managerial tasks seamlessly through Record360:

We can do all these in one, easy-to-use application.

“Record360 allows us to input checklists into our smartphone and upload photos to be stored in the cloud database where everyone can have access to it anytime. We can do all these in one, easy-to-use application.”

He added, “We don’t have to call to nag anyone about information that’s needed because it’s already there.”

Reliable software can help your team create and submit inspection reports in real-time anywhere, especially on the field. This minimizes delays for the assigned personnel to implement repairs, damage cost computation, client contacts, or other next steps in your rental management processes.

Modernize your equipment rental operations

If you want to give your rental equipment business an advantage over your competitors, start by modernizing your rental operations now.

Manual processes will sap your team’s productivity and cause needless, costly, firefighting. With a modernized rental operation, however, managing your business becomes easier, you can get more done with the least amount of time and resources, and you give your clients a pleasant experience working with your company.

Interested in learning more about Record360? Schedule a demonstration today.

Multiply your equipment revenue with these critical steps

Why make just enough from your equipment rental business when you can multiply your revenue tenfold?

I know this may sound difficult to some, but 10Xing your equipment rental revenue is not as difficult as you think. Most equipment rental companies could achieve this if they only followed the right strategies.

While there is no one-size-fits-all formula for growing equipment rental revenues, you can build upon the tried and tested tips in this guide to 10Xing your equipment rental revenue.

1. Scale your rental business

Work with domain experts to scale your operations and increase your revenue.

Collaboration lets you combine their industry knowledge with your business experience. They can help you understand your industry’s dynamics better, build relationships with key players, and leverage industry-specific know-how to plot the best approach to scale your operations.

Technology is another crucial factor for scaling.

Developing a reliable technology infrastructure increases your efficiency and reduces disruptions as you scale. It allows for easier data access and migration and streamlines your team’s collaboration internally and with third-party agencies.

What’s more, robust technology platforms have data and analytics features you can leverage to track and quantify the efficiency of your equipment rental business. By studying the data generated you can identify which parts of your processes aren’t bringing you meaningful results and which ones do.

2. Develop a culture of customer service

What does customer service have to do with equipment rental revenue? It’s the key piece of the puzzle to develop long-lasting relationships with your customers.

By making customer trust and rapport a central part of your company’s culture, you cultivate a team that’s genuinely interested in your customers’ welfare. This paves the way to higher levels of customer satisfaction, which leads to more loyal customers for your equipment rental business.

Bolster the customer-focused culture by leveraging the right technology to streamline your workflows, allowing you to deliver exceptional customer support.

Develop your tech stack and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from a long-term perspective. This helps you avoid adding unnecessary or duplicate tools that cost you more and hinder efforts to scale your business.

3. Build strategic partnerships

Unless you have every piece of equipment under the sun, from aerial, earthwork, to general construction, you can’t accommodate all of your customers’ equipment needs.

Cooperate with your competitors so you can help each other out. Partner with your competitors, assess what each company does well, and determine the best way to work together to establish a win-win situation for both your businesses.

Entering into Coopetition can also give you access to your competitors’ customer base.

Most customers stick with an equipment rental company because they trust the people, the process, and the services’ quality.

Partnering with competitors can earn you a bit of that customer trust since working with competitors can indicate how your competitor trusts you enough to partner with you.

This way, the next time your competitor doesn’t have the customer’s needs, your business could be their next choice.

4. Hire good blue-collar workers

Blue-collar workers know how your equipment works and understand the hassle your customers go through when the equipment breaks down. This allows them to empathize with your customers even more so than sales people who often do not have hands-on experience and knowledge with your equipment.

Empathy lets your blue-collar workers help with both their hearts and minds instead of merely going through the motions or the list of tasks to get things done.

When you have a team that’s genuinely interested in helping your customers, you can be sure your customers can feel their sincerity. This, in turn, makes them feel valued and important, which ultimately makes them want to stick with you and refer people your way.

5. Digitize your inspections

Recording your fleet’s condition is vital to protecting your assets and ensuring you don’t lose money in case of damages caused by the carrier and equipment misuse and abuse.

Recording your inspections also keeps you from handing off damaged or malfunctioning equipment to your customers, which could ruin your relationship and impact your revenue.

Record360 allows you to streamline your inspection process through digitization. The app lets you take high-resolution photos and videos to document your rental equipment’s actual condition, upload them to the cloud, and immediately inform your customer.

Doing so gives you irrefutable proof in case of disputes, eliminates arguments with your customers, and avoid paying for repairs for equipment damages you didn’t cause.

With the right technology, you’ll get a more granular view of your equipment’s condition and components before handing it off and after it comes back from the customer.

6. Bill customers for damages while preserving your relationship

Equipment wear and tear is inevitable. As long as you’re reasonable and fair about identifying damages and wear and tear, your customers are more likely to accept responsibility and pay for their part.

That is why the before and after photo and video records are crucial to determine how much is damage and wear and tear.

Tracking and documenting everything can help you settle disputes properly and maintain a healthy relationship with your customers.

What’s next?

While this guide is incomplete, you can use the tips as a starting point to 10X your revenue. These tips are tried and tested to work, so if you put in the effort to implement them, you are bound to skyrocket your equipment rental revenue.

Interested in learning more about Record360? Schedule a demonstration today.

Renting assets such as heavy equipment and trucks come with significant risks. Any theft or damages to your rented assets can lead to expensive liabilities and hurt your bottom line big time.

That is why it’s crucial to have a solid rental contract in place to protect your business and manage risks, including equipment malfunctions leading to contractor lawsuits and contract breaches that leave you with hefty legal bills.

In this guide, we’ll cover several tips on making your equipment leasing and rental contract legally bulletproof and the terms and conditions you should build into your agreement.

1. Know your implied legal duties

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of what makes a solid leasing agreement, you’ll need to know your responsibilities as the lessor under the rental contract.

Duty to inspect

Check the equipment when you first get it from the manufacturer and when it comes back from the customer to ensure it’s safe and reasonably free of obvious defects.

Duty to instruct

Inform customers about the proper and safe use, storage, maintenance, transfer, repair (if required) of the equipment.

Duty to warn

Warn your customers of the potential dangers of expected misuse of the equipment, such as unloading an excavator from a flatbed without an appropriate ramp, which might cause it to fall and get damaged.

Most equipment manufacturers provide instructions and warnings on safe and proper machinery handling. Include a provision in your contract limiting your customers’ usage to the manufacturer’s intended use.

This way, you won’t be held liable if the equipment gets damaged because of the customer’s misuse of the machinery.

Also, include a contract requirement for customers to stop using the equipment in case of malfunctions and accidents and to notify you immediately to prevent further damage.

While all these can help protect your business from several potential legal issues, you can’t avoid all liabilities and might still get sued for anything that can go wrong.

Setting up legal protections through bulletproof contracts, having a good process of getting signatures, and establishing proper documentation is crucial to lower your legal costs in case of disputes.

The more comprehensive these legal protections are, the more likely you’ll discourage other parties from filing claims and lower the amount you have to pay in case of a settlement.

2. Increase legal protection through your equipment rental contract

A rental contract touches on many areas of leasing exposures, such as equipment damages, class action lawsuits, and personal injury claims. If your agreement doesn’t cover these risks, you leave your business open to a long list of potential liabilities.

That is why you need to ensure your contract includes all the necessary information and build terms and conditions, rights, and remedies into your leasing agreement to protect your business.

An excellent way to increase your legal protection through your rental contract is to have a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with your customers.

An MSA sets the terms for any additional rental contracts that you sign with your customers in the future.

This way, when you need to exchange or add new pieces of equipment to the contract or do multiple business arrangements with existing customers, you won’t need to create a revised agreement and get it signed every single time.

An MSA provides your business some umbrella protection if you don’t get a signature or don’t have a rental contract for some reason since the master lease will be the assumed terms of your equipment rental agreement.

Push for master agreements, particularly if you’re doing repeat business or leasing $50,000 to $200,000 worth of equipment as a first line of legal protection against potential expensive liabilities.

At a minimum, if you’re doing daily rental contracts with new customers, ensure your agreement includes a provision that says, “This contract and these contract terms will apply to all future rented items and agreements with the lessor,” but your safest bet is to go for an MSA.

Master agreements vs. Individual rental contracts

Daily rental contracts are single page front and back agreements commonly used for one-off rentals of one or a couple of equipment separately.

An MSA is a legal document that states the terms of the relationship between the lessor and lessee going forward. It contains the terms both parties agreed to, negotiated, and signed off on once.

So if your customer rents your equipment, your company sends a purchase order to your client and processes the release and delivery of the equipment. The customer then pays for the rental amount and accompanying fees according to the payment terms in the MSA.

With this, you won’t need to renegotiate the contract terms and conditions for each equipment or revise your existing contract since customers are reaffirming the master agreement every time they rent your machinery.

This eliminates a key bottleneck of the transaction process for both you and your customers while ensuring your business has the legal protection measures in place through your rental contract.

A vital aspect of this process is documenting the condition of the equipment when you released it, when it arrived at the job site, and when it’s returned to you as this provides evidence of the charges to your customer.

The better you document the in and out process of your equipment, the more evidence you have, and the more likely you’ll get paid and have solid evidence in case of a dispute.

3. Use the right technology to obtain authorized contract signatures

Getting signatures on your agreement terms can be challenging with the endless back and forth that comes with paper contracts. You’ll also need to make sure the person signing the contract is authorized to sign on behalf of the company or lessee.

Use verification technology including geolocation, time stamps, signatory Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and digital signature apps to help validate contract e-signatures and signatories easily and in real-time.

With this technology, you get your legal documents to someone you’re sure has the authority to sign, maybe the company owner or president, and ensure the signature is valid and will hold up in court.

Building all this technology into your process makes obtaining and verifying signatures more reliable and efficient than pen and ink rental agreements.

4. Implement a Damage Waiver policy

When you sell damage waivers, you’re essentially selling a waiver of your claims to collect physical damage to your equipment when it comes back from a renter. This usually comes in an additional 10% or 15% of your rental fee.

Damage waivers allow you to offset your company’s long-term costs associated with equipment repairs and replacements with the percentage you get from your damage waiver sales.

However, you need to implement it properly and review your current damage waiver program to resolve potential disputes and avoid lawsuits by considering these tips.

• Include a separate line item for the Damage Waiver fee charge on the front of your equipment rental contract.
• Add a statement that says, “Damage Waiver is optional” on both the front and back portion of your rental contract. This shows customers that they can opt out of and not pay for the waiver.
• Include a Damage Waiver provision on the back portion of your rental contract or in a separate addendum. Use simple language and as little legal jargon as possible so customers understand the terms easily.
• Use print large enough for customers to read and include language in your rental contract that states, “A larger-font version of these Damage Waiver terms and conditions is available on request.”
• Provide a separate Damage Waiver guide or Addendum to customers who purchase the waiver to ensure they understand its terms, policies, and coverage.
• Train your counter employees on the value of Damage Waivers and ensure they can communicate the savings on costs and time the waiver provides your customers.

Implementing a Damage Waiver policy can get tricky, but as long as you know how best to administer your program, you’ll gain its benefits, offer its value to your customers, and avoid lawsuits.

Additionally, check with your insurance company first for coverage, or you could be in for a terrible surprise when you end up with badly damaged equipment and your insurance policy doesn’t cover it.

Make your contracts legally effective now

Creating a solid rental contract helps you protect and legally represent your business effectively from equipment leasing risks.

It also makes your equipment rental processes more efficient since all the terms and conditions are clear-cut from the get-go, preparing you for legal issues, lowering your legal fees, and reducing lawsuits.

Interested in learning more about Record360? Schedule a demonstration today.