Our client is a renowned provider of portable sanitation equipment, roll-off dumpsters, temporary fences, high-volume liquid waste disposals, and related assets, with operations in 150 locations across the United States. Its equipment is used at small and large construction sites, famous events, entertainment facilities, residential developments, and disaster management sites.
Honda, Amazon, and Tesla are some of the major clients of the company, and it has often served events like Coachella, Superbowl, and F1 races.
It started using EZOfficeInventory in November 2022 with the primary objective of tracking its trailer line – consisting of portable plastic toilets, showers, and hand-washing and laundry equipment – dispersed in 20 locations.
With EZOfficeInventory, it efficiently manages its vast trailer business and tracks 2800 trailers a day.
EZOfficeInventory has enabled the company to expedite its daily operations by simplifying the asset tracking process and equipping the Operations team to make quick decisions regarding trailer reservations.
Spreadsheets make asset tracking challenging
As the company was expanding, so were its problems. It was getting more difficult to manage assets — especially since they were recorded in spreadsheets.
Before investing in EZOffieInventory, our client was using seven spreadsheets to track its vast variety of trailers. This created information silos because each spreadsheet had tons of information — each different from the other.
Unstructured and disorganized spreadsheets resulted in duplicate and missing records which, in turn, created redundancies and made it difficult for asset managers to assess asset availability.
It took ages for asset managers to find an available trailer from all the spreadsheets and this significantly hampered the reservation and delivery process. But problems didn’t end there.
These spreadsheets were also outdated as it was difficult to update them. If information was updated, there was no record of past information. There was no clear data structure or reports that enabled decision-makers to make informed, data-driven decisions. The company’s profitability and customer satisfaction levels suffered as the Operations team lacked comprehensible and reliable information to answer customer queries regarding trailer availability.
Assets were the concern of various departments and spreadsheets made collaboration very difficult between asset managers. Every department relied on one asset manager to manage a specific spreadsheet. Therefore, none of the managers had complete visibility into all the trailer data.
Keeping these challenges in mind, the company’s National Product Manager was looking for a centralized system to better manage and track their trailers and other related equipment.
He said, “My brain was the glue between all 7 spreadsheets”, highlighting his turmoil at trying to manage the exorbitant amount of information he had to organize and use.
Switching to EZOfficeInventory – customer response time improves by 30%
With EZOfficeInventory, the client improved its overall logistical workflows by streamlining the reservation and checkin/checkout processes.The new system helped them track trailers, generate order numbers, manage invoices, and simplify bookings. Now, the asset managers can reserve a trailer and provide the reservation or order number in the invoices and receipts.
For example, an asset manager can reserve a trailer on behalf of a customer in EZOfficeInventory and the system will automatically assign it a reservation number. This way a manager can quickly use the reservation number of an order to find the order details and address customer concerns.
The company can easily manage their trailers and promptly answer customer queries regarding trailer availability — trailer count and locations are clearly visible in the system.
The National Product Manager pointed out that by using EZOfficeInventory, they have been able to improve customer response time by almost 30%.
Additionally, the client has been able to manage big projects such as providing trailers for large-scale construction sites and events with EZOfficeInventory. The “Projects” feature allows asset managers to cluster assets for an upcoming event or booking. They use Projects extensively and are able to record particular information pertaining to a reservation. This way they can easily retrieve it in case an issue needs to be dealt with, such as a trailer breaking down on site.
He said, “It is helpful to group the particular assets [reserved trailers] into projects and be able to produce them for the Operations team. This helps the team prepare those assets for delivery and be on the same page with the sales team at all steps of the process”.
Besides “Projects”, the Operations team loved several other features in EZOfficeInventory. He pointed out some frequently used features and their role in helping them optimize its trailer booking and delivery processes.
Custom Filters enable speedy search
Their National Product Manager highlighted how he is a big fan of “Custom Filters” in EZOfficeInventory,
“The sheer ability to pull information based on a very specific criteria — the way we use filters to drill down to items — is incredible.”
EZOfficeInventory has allowed the team to quickly respond to data requests and better communicate with authorities, such as the CFO and VP of the company by extracting exact information from the system with filters. The National Product Manager says that while this process used to take around a day to complete in the past, he is able to do it now within 10 minutes.
Since the company has various locations, tracking trailers across all these locations is mandatory. With EZOfficeInventory, finding trailers based on their location has become convenient. The asset managers just have to filter the trailers by location and they can see their availability and count instantly. This way, they are able to give their teams the information they need as quickly as possible.
This functionality has improved the organization of information substantially and reduced information overload.
Custom Roles improve collaboration
The teams mainly using EZOfficeInventory include the Operations team and the Reservations team. The client has been able to restrict access to trailer data based on the departmental roles of the asset managers. Only the assigned departments are able to perform actions on the account which means increased data security.
The system has enabled managers sitting in different locations and working remotely to access and update trailer information on a regular basis, without them having to contact each other. This enables them to manage trailers nationally. For example, someone working in Ohio is now able to manage trailers located in Florida.
“The shared notion of being able to track our assets on a one-to-one real basis, with the entire team being able to see them from their seat is great”, said their National Product Manager.
Automated reports enable instant data analysis
The company benefits from EZOfficeInventory’s “Custom Reports” that enable asset managers to easily generate information based on specific criteria. These reports are highly useful as they are sent every month to the Operations team to help them prepare for the reservations.
“Reports are great. We are able to build and schedule daily reports to send to our operations team for the next 7-30 days of reservations and deliveries”, said National Product Manager.
With “Custom Reports”, the team can easily. present the data they need and analyze it. This expedites the administrative processes as the company’s reporting system is now automated.
Asset tracking becomes a breeze
Previously, the asset managers had to email all 20 trailer hubs and the seven people managing spreadsheets to confirm trailer availability – making asset tracking a nerve-wracking task. Now, they have been able to overcome this challenge and streamline the reporting process with EZOfficeInventory through asset tracking.
The National Product Manager explained that it is much easier now to know a trailer’s location, quantity, and custodian and assess its condition to see if it requires maintenance or repair. This way, all the team members are on the same page regarding asset availability and are able to respond promptly to maintenance requests, location changes, etc.
For example, recently their team was able to assess the location of their shower trailers and decide on the immediate delivery of trailers to disaster relief sites in California.
The team also uses the “Carts” feature which has allowed asset managers to checkout assets to a location collectively – saving time compared to single checkouts. The National Product Manager emphasized how EZOfficeInventory has helped him expedite the process and make data retrieval possible.
He said, “I save myself almost 20 man hours per month.”
The way forward
Our client is on its way to fully implementing EZOfficeInventory and leveraging its other features for a holistic experience. The team is excited to continue to use the system for improved data synchronization and quicker execution of workflows.
EZOfficeInventory has been a savior for the company in reducing inefficiencies and administrative gaps arising as a result of outdated, manual processes. Moreover, the ability to customize the platform according to its needs has made managing assets simpler.
The company’s National Product Manager highlighted that the customer success team at EZOfficeInventory made the onboarding process smooth for the company and was quick in responding to their queries. With minor feature additions, such as enhanced reservations and more integrations, the company finds several avenues to leverage EZOfficeInventory and benefit from its full potential.
