What Is Cloud-based Car Rental Software? How Does It Help to Manage the Car Rental Business?

• By Jason Adams
• 29-04-2022
• Software

The need for on-demand transportation and the increase in global travel has created a huge market for the car rental business. Many new players, along with some existing ones, are competing to be the top players in this massive market. However, with the pool of large customers, car rental operators often find themselves stuck in lengthy admin work, regulatory policies, and outdated business processes. With the right management strategies in place, car rental operators can improve business prospects and reduce the churn-out rate. It helps to serve customers better and even mitigate core issues such as high-overhead costs and razor-thin margins.

The management in the car rental business spans a number of activities such as maintenance, fleet management, customer management, inspection, insurance renewal, staff management, tax filing, invoices, payments, etc. Since the modern car rental business operates on the digital interface, the traditional management approach is less effective. An end-to-end cloud-based car rental software stands as a focal point today to simplify the management of the car rental business.

What Is Cloud-based Car Rental Software?
Cloud-based car rental software is a tool designed to manage the fleet of rental cars from anywhere. The software offers a range of features to perform various business activities, from managing customers to tracking cars and updating insurance policies. It is a pretty helpful tool in managing day-to-day car rental business affairs, especially when the resources are scant to manage the business.
The car rental customers’ preferences are evolving in terms of quality, convenience, and budget. In order to match and distinguish from competitors, the cloud car rental software is critical for everyone in this business.

How Does A Cloud-based Car Rental Tool Help in Managing the Car Rental Business?

Manage fleet from anywhere:
Many global car rental companies operate and manage their business cross-border. Despite all the barriers, they successfully resume the same level of services and support. Their success is due to cloud car rental software that enables them to manage car fleets efficiently. No matter where they are, with just a click of a button, they can access the business of any region. They can track business performance in real-time and make decisions based on that.

Increase in process efficiency:
Cloud car rental software offers the agility and speed that increase the overall efficiency of the business. With the help of software, they can respond to customer needs quickly and easily manage some complex business processes. It reduces the manual work by automating the car rental business workflow and improves the staff’s productivity. It can quickly adapt to the changing market demand.

Better visibility on car inventory:
Poor visibility of car inventory could be a nightmare for car rental operators. If there is more demand and less supply, it cannot serve all of the customers and could fail to meet their expectations. It is critical that car rental operators have real-time visibility of their car inventory. With a cloud car rental management system, users can see the number of rental cars booked, returned, and under maintenance. It helps them make better decisions on fleet management and quickly mobilize them as per the demand.

Streamline the repair and maintenance work:
Advance cloud-based car rental software supports predictive analytics. It makes staff work easier by predicting the repair and maintenance work in advance. It reduces the maintenance cost significantly as the car is maintained regularly and problems are fixed before it gets worse.

Customer value proposition:
Car rental operators should continuously analyze their customer relationship strategy and make changes to improve it further. It can be done with the help of a cloud-based car rental system. Car rental businesses can use software to categorize their customers and target them based on their requirements. Besides that, cloud car rental software can enhance customer experience by providing services such as easy payment (digital wallet, credit card), flexible cancellation policy, mobile-friendly app, real-time updates of contract or maintenance, constant customer support, etc.

Decrease in maintenance cost:
The primary concern with on-premise car rental software is the high maintenance costs. With cloud car rental software, the users don’t need a dedicated team to maintain the hardware. If there is any breakdown in the service, it is the responsibility of the vendor to fix it. Overall, it decreases the maintenance costs and does not demand a separate space to manage the server.

Work flexibility:
With cloud computing, the car rental staff can have the flexibility to work from anywhere. They can access documents or files from any device and work from any location.

Improved collaboration:
Cloud car rental software facilitates better collaboration and keeps everyone on the same page. It allows sharing of documents and reports with team members in real-time. With information shared in real-time, there is less room for errors and confusion.

Higher scalability:
Cloud-based car rental software usually follows a pay-as-you-go model and flexible pricing. They can select software features and scale to advance versions as they grow their business. Being scalable is the biggest advantage of using cloud-based car rental software. They offer better flexibility to make changes to the IT services and facilitate the organization to continue their operations with minimum or no downtime at all. Cloud-based car rental software saves car rental operators time and money in buying, installing, and training employees for the software.

Security:
Cloud car rental software often comes with robust security features such as double-factor authorization and role-based access. Besides that, they have an in-built disaster recovery and backup system to protect users' data. The cloud data center is managed by experienced technicians, and they continuously monitor the software for vulnerabilities.

Automatic software updates:
Taking software updates at a regular interval is a standard procedure that every IT technician follows as part of their role. IT staff have to stay vigilant on all the updates, and missing any updates could result in low performance of the system or expose it to security threats. With the cloud, these risks can be reduced significantly. The cloud runs automatic updates to perform well and stay protected from security threats. It saves IT staff time in managing and taking updates manually.

Promoting green revolution:
With the increasing awareness of the green revolution, most countries have become proactive in reducing their carbon footprint. Advanced cloud car rental software interlaces car rental operators with vehicle remote health monitoring and prognostic maintenance systems. It diagnoses vehicle failure in advance and allows fleet managers to respond faster to vehicle performance issues. With fewer breakdowns, rental cars can perform better and handle more rides even with fewer numbers. Less number of cars on roads means less pollution. Besides that, the rise in EV cars has caught the attention of car rental companies, and many of them are gradually shifting to EV cars for their car rental business.

There are numerous cloud-based car rental software solutions available in the market, and they offer various features. However, finding the right software is critical for business success and to get ROI. It is essential that car rental operators match their business requirements and compare them on various parameters such as pricing, customer support, budget, security, etc.

Conclusion
The wave of technological evolution has been leaving a positive impact on most industries, including the car rental industry, and it has empowered car rental businesses to provide fast, affordable, and consistent services to their customers. It enables them to get much in-line with the customers’ preferences and unlock their needs on a much deeper level. Technology such as cloud-based car rental software is pretty promising and assists car rental operators in overcoming their business challenges. It offers them a centralized system to operate their business from any corner of the world and minimize business management costs. Minimizing overhead and maximizing operational efficiency are the perfect recipes for car rental operators to succeed in a highly competitive market. Cloud computing is the future; by transitioning the business to cloud car rental software, there is an assurance for future growth and sustainability.