The process of choosing the vendor from which to purchase your Fleet GPS system is perhaps the most difficult part of the process. As a prospective customer, you’ve looked at several vendors and collected notes and information from all of them. Each vendor has its pluses and minuses. The trick is to pull all of the information, good and bad, into a format that allows you to grade each vendor based on what is important to your company. Having a checklist of key points to use in the vendor selection process will go a long way in helping you to determine which vendor to go with.
Let’s take a look at some items that you can include on a checklist. For each vendor, assign a grade to each item. If the checklist works as planned, the vendor that grades out the best is the vendor you would want to give your business to.
Price
Price is going to be a key item no matter what. While it may not be the final determining factor in making your choice, it will definitely be in the top 2 or 3. Don’t discount a vendor just because their price is higher than everyone else’s, unless it is entirely out of line with everything else you’re seeing. A vendor who is charging slightly more than everyone else might have other things to offer that the rest of the vendor field doesn’t.
Location
The location of the Fleet GPS vendor is going to be important to your company. You’re going to want to work with a local company with a good reputation that can respond to your needs quickly. A national vendor that contracts out their work to other companies isn’t going to respond to your needs as well as the local guy who wants your business and will do everything he can to keep it.
Reputation
How long has the vendor been in business? What are the vendor’s customers saying about service, response, and other intangibles? Have any vendor you’re considering buying from provide you with a list of references to speak to. There’s no better way to get information about a company than to talk to their current customers.
Service and Maintenance
What kind of service and maintenance is the vendor going to provide for the Fleet GPS system? Is it included in the cost of the system, or do you have to pay extra for it? Will you be charged for service calls, or are they part of the package you’re buying? Get answers to these questions so you know what to expect once you’ve purchased the system.
How were you treated?
When you buy anything that involves talking to multiple vendors to get the best deal, you’ll find companies that are willing to go the extra mile to secure you as a customer, and others that act like they could care less. Make a note of that while you’re talking to vendors. The vendor working hardest to secure your business could very well be the one who will work hardest to keep it.
Come up with your own items
As you look at the items we’ve covered here, you’ll start to get the idea of what things are being looked at in order to evaluate a vendor as well as possible. You’ll probably have your own items that spring to mind that you’ll want to put on your checklist. Select items that are important to your business. Having a checklist that is as complete as possible and includes items that are important to you will help you to make the very best decision possible when it comes to finally choosing a vendor and buying your Fleet GPS.
