Making Heavy Equipment Rentals Easier For Your Customer
One of the primary expectations of online selling and eCommerce was to make the purchasing process better for the end-user. For the most part, that has been the result as demonstrated through the proven effect eCommerce has had on the construction industry and its adoption across equipment rental companies. But it's not just the online product that provides better experiences for customers. It's also the supporting infrastructures that get built into these online stores.
While a lot of contractors have their go-to rental companies, a lot of them are still trying to figure out where they can rent construction equipment if they need it quickly and at a cost-effective price. The first place they usually go for that is Google. That's why it's important to not only just set up an online store but to make it as accessible and convenient as you possibly can for the customer.
Through our research and findings, there are eight best practices you need to do to make eCommerce and heavy equipment rentals easier for your customers:
We're going to go into each best practice below:
Set Up An Easily Accessible eCommerce Site
Thankfully, there are many ways you can go about easily creating a website nowadays. Whether it's using a pretty simple plug-and-play websites software like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, WebStores, or anything similar, making your own eCommerce site has never been easier. Developing your own website can be extremely costly and isn't the best use of resources for a lot of small businesses. Using the tools mentioned above can save you a lot of those expenses.
While all of the plug-and-play websites offer online shopping options, only WebStores, powered by DOZR, is built specifically for heavy equipment rental companies and can be customized for your brand.
Make Prices Transparent
One of the best ways to demonstrate great customer service on an eCommerce platform is to be upfront about pricing. Contractors already have major concerns about whether they are going to complete a project on budget. The last thing they want is to find themselves searching too long to figure out how much it costs to rent construction equipment. If you want to stand out from your competition and provide quick and easy service for your customers, you should mitigate this pain point by demonstrating transparent pricing. Whether that's being transparent about any current deals, showing accurate rates, or proactively telling customers about any potential additional feels, people want to know what to expect when they're about to pay.
As you've probably experienced, there's nothing worse than getting to an online checkout and seeing costs on the bill that were hidden until that moment. That's why on WebStores, we've made it so that you control the rates and availability, while also making it extremely easy to showcase any other fees that might apply.
Allow Easy Order Tracking
Once your customer has made a purchase, they often want to know where it is and when it's expected. This means that customers want an easily accessible way to view the details of their order, as well as a headache-free way to change anything should it be necessary, all online and all with the click of a button. Doing this also allows your customers to have the same level of transparency that you as the rental company has as well. It's a win-win solution and a great opportunity to satisfy customers even further.
Provide 24/7 Access To Your Site
Most websites are active 24/7. While your store is open almost daily, it's probably not open 24 hours a day. After all, sleep is important. By creating a website and using an eCommerce platform, your online store can drive digital traffic and revenue to your business all while you're off-hours. That way, when you come to work in the morning the next day, you'll have a few orders that you can fulfill and know that you're driving business.
Being accessible 24/7 through your site is also a great way to start understanding your customers and their rental journey. You will gain valuable information like what time of the day is common for rentals, what equipment is easier to book digitally, as well as understand if customers prefer eCommerce orders or in-person shopping! All of these insights will help you continue and develop a strategy that makes life easier for your customers.
Take Online Payments
With so many diverse options for payment nowadays, it's best to serve every type of customer. This means allowing cash, debit, or credit payments for one-off rentals while also allowing customer accounts, PayPal, or some other forms of digital payment. Even transfers like Venmo and CashApp have become a more popular form of payment. At the end of the day it's up to you what type of payment you'll take, but increasing the options of the customer will certainly help make life easier for them.
By taking online payments, you're making the entire process digital, which will benefit the customer. The great part about this is that if you're using the right technology and platform, customer information will be synced with the backend operations of your business. This way, existing customers can either easily use the same card information as before or even be set up with preferred rates. This often is appreciated as preferred rates are an industry norm and an expectation in a lot of cases.
As DOZR and WebStores were founded by previous contractors, we made sure to take all of our experiences and put them into a product that served contractors and rental companies specifically.
Sync Your Inventory With Your ERP
While we've talked a lot about making everything easier for the customer, it also needs to work for you, the rental company, when adapting eCommerce strategies. That's why your website and online orders need to sync well with your enterprise resource planning software. This will help ensure that inventory isn't being double-booked and equipment availability is automatically updated after every order.
And while there are lots of websites that allow you to create online shopping, very few websites provide solutions that integrate easily with your ERP software. However, WebStores is designed specifically to integrate with industry-specific ERPs and has been successfully implemented with many different software.
Offer Delivery and Convenience
The real icing on the cake when it comes to providing online shopping convenience is making delivery easy. No one wants to shop online just to eventually go and pick up the order themselves anyway. After all, that defeats almost the entire purpose of eCommerce. Logistically this might not always be possible, especially for smaller companies. However, if you see that there is an increase in online orders, then providing an eCommerce solution with delivery services might be worth the investment!
Continue To Try New Technology
If you're running a business, there should never be an end to trying new methods for satisfying your customers. This could mean trying new technologies to continue to create more efficiencies in your workflows or rental management. It could also mean trying new social media platforms to expand your business and brand even further.
As new eCommerce tools continue to be developed, DOZR is proud to be leading the way in the construction and contractor industries. With our WebStores and Marketplace, our goal is to make renting heavy equipment easier for both contractors and rental companies with touch-free, easily integrable, and customizable eCommerce solutions. Try a demo today to see if WebStores would be right for your company.
