Founded in 2021, Hometown Services is a collective of 26 residential HVAC, plumbing, and electrical service providers operating across the South-Central U.S. Together, the HomeTown brands manage a fleet of 1,500 vehicles, including Ford Transit® vans, E-350 box trucks, and F-250® Super Duty® trucks, all specially equipped to transport and service expensive home and business electrical equipment.
Managing a fleet of this size and diversity across a large geographic area poses significant challenges for any business. For Hometown, the complexity was further heightened by the aggregation of multiple brands into the three-year-old company. Del Underwood, vice president of Purchasing and Fleet, noted, “Our oldest brand was founded in 1961. Even the youngest is at least 10 years old.” Each brand had developed its own processes for managing a fleet, many of which were manual.
“Fleet management was happening largely without the support of software,” Underwood said. To address this, Hometown Services turned to Ford Pro™ for software adoption and implementation to streamline their operations.
Hometown Services purchases anywhere between two and 250 vehicles a year, making seamless vehicle integration crucial for growth. To facilitate this, they worked with Brian Harbison, Ford Pro™ FinSimple™ Commercial Business Development Manager, to set up a Commercial Line of Credit (CLOC). Once approved, this credit line allows fleets to easily add vehicles by applying the total amount financed for each vehicle to the existing balance.
To track vehicles post-purchase, Hometown uses Ford Pro Fleet Management Software, which captures cost-related data, vehicle maintenance history, and activity in a convenient dashboard. “The Fleet Management Software has brought a lot of organization to our business,” Underwood said. It also helps offload time-intensive fleet management processes like licensing, registering, and titling new vehicles. “The software helps us do our jobs and make money,” he added.
Ford Pro™ Fleet Management Software tracks vehicle maintenance history and allows fleets to create and assign work orders, tracking them from start to finish. This function is particularly useful for Hometown, as each brand completes vehicle maintenance differently. Leveraging this software has allowed each brand to maintain its individuality while ensuring Hometown has a comprehensive view of the fleet’s overall health. The data helps implement proactive maintenance schedules, critical for increasing uptime. “In our industry, downtime is a killer,” Underwood said, noting that downtime costs can be up to $22,000 per day.
Understanding when to decommission a vehicle is crucial for business efficiency. “At some point, its total cost of ownership will start to rise to a point where it makes more financial sense to bring in a new vehicle,” Underwood explained. Ford Pro™ Fleet Management Software helps capture all expenses in one place, making it easier to determine when to decommission vehicles.
The dynamic nature of the commercial fleet industry requires businesses to be adaptable and organized. With Ford Pro solutions, Hometown Services has simplified processes, increased uptime, and gained a comprehensive view of their total cost of ownership, enabling them to manage their fleet efficiently and continue growing their operations.
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