Rhino Fleet Tracking, from our first day, offers fleet tracking with no contract. This greatly bucked the trend in the GPS tracking industry where contracts of 2-3 years were always required. Since that time, we have been joined, but our largest competitors still require a 2-3 year contract. Why? Well, if you are signed to a multi-year contract, the company can count on your payment every month for the duration of that contract regardless of the company’s performance.
Why we know… our personal experience with contracts.
I learned this lesson first hand with our office phone system. We used a small provider for a number of years. We purchased our equipment and were on a month-to-month plan with the provider. Unfortunately, because of the provider’s size, he had a hard time responding in a timely manner to requests for changes and upgrades. Further, we were having some intermittent service issues. So, we decided to change providers.
In our search for a phone provider, we had a tough time finding any provider that would operate without a multi-year contract. We were willing to purchase our phones and equipment, but every provider we spoke to was determined to “give” us equipment while locking in a 3 year commitment. We finally selected one and were installed. It was on day 1 when I discovered that dialing was archaic and I’d lost a number of features that worked much better on our old system. Then I learned we had a conference phone that did not work and had already consumed 40 hours of our in house technician’s time.
I wanted out and quick!
After learning of the depths of the contract we’d signed, I knew it would be tough. So, we determined to stick it out. Then, we experienced an all day outage of the system impairing our ability to serve our customers and prospective customers… When I asked about exiting the contract, our trusted advisor sent us the recommended path to pursue to file legal papers to exit the contract. As most of our customers would agree, we have better things to do than involve ourselves in legal matters of this nature.
So, why would our fleet tracking competitors require contracts? Well, for the same reason. If you sign a 3 year contract with a GPS tracking company, you should expect to pay every last month of that contract. The fleet tracking companies that “give” away free devices and installation are committed to the enforcement of those contracts. They say the happiest two days in a man’s life are when he buys a boat and when he sells that boat. I would imagine it’s a happy day when a fleet owner finally pays his last day on a fleet tracking contract and has a choice again on who will provide the service.
It is our commitment to earn the business of our customers every month.
Steven Van Ooyen, CEO
