New England Fleet Services

About New England Fleet Services 

New England Fleet Services started in 2015. They specialize in the maintenance and repair of light- and heavy-duty commercial fleets, and at press time had expanded to five techs, three service trucks, and a service manager. More recently, they’ve been focusing on heavy-duty tractors and trailers. 

They’ve also got a six thousand square foot shop and, according to President Nate Taylor, are in the process of expanding into an additional three thousand square foot facility. 

Pain Point: Customer Notes Taking Up Too Much Time 

Part of servicing customers involves providing comprehensive notes on each job. These notes serve as a narrative for customers who want to know what’s going on with their vehicles; they also act as part of a vehicle’s record, so technicians down the line can see its repair and maintenance history. 

“Some techs are good at it,” Nate said. “Some are absolutely horrendous at it.” 

And while the techs could be coached into producing detailed notes, what they produced was not always as easy to read as they needed to be. They became the task of the service manager, who would do the obligatory cleaning up of the notes. When ChatGPT and Copilot landed on the scene, Nate said, the service manager began feeding the notes into them to generate a more articulate set. 

All that proofing and program-hopping led to minutes and ultimately hours lost for the service manager, who had other duties to attend to. 

Enter Fullbay AI 

New England Fleet Services originally turned to Fullbay when their prior shop management software — while a good service — lagged behind in the digital work order area. While talking to a fellow shop owner, he mentioned his desire for a more modern and organized software solution. “He said check out Fullbay,” Nate said. “They had made the switch to you guys, and he spoke very highly of [Fullbay].”

Fullbay’s AI offerings, specifically the notes cleanup, seemed particularly enticing. How much time and energy could they save the New England Fleet Services team?

Service Orders Are Cleaned Up Much Faster 

“The AI feature is not necessarily helping the techs directly do their work better,” Nate told us. “What it is doing is allowing my service manager to do his work better.”

The service manager, as you’ll recall, was doing a lot of cleaning up whenever service orders landed on his desk, often running them through other software to do the proofing. Now, Nate said, they hit the “Note Cleanup” button on the service order, 

“If it were to save five minutes per work order, [with] the amount of work we do, that’s hours saved per month,” he said. 

In addition, Fullbay’s AI knows what it’s talking about. Part of the reason the service manager lost so much time on cleaning up notes was because he had to take what ChatGPT or Copilot initially produced and re-introduce proper industry language. Fullbay’s AI does that from the get-go. “[It] knows the technical jargon and how to get it across with industry lingo,” Nate told us. While the service manager always proofreads the output afterwards, “it does an amazing job filling in the blanks.” 

“That’s hours saved per month.”

More Time Freed Up For Other Work 

What sort of work can the service manager get done if he’s not dedicating multiple hours per month to editing work orders? He can focus on building rapport with customers — always important to a business — and actually running the shop. He can keep the schedule cleaner and keep jobs rolling along. 

“[The work becomes] more efficient and thorough,” Nate said, adding that his service manager, while in possession of great business sense, is not from the truck or automotive field. He’s been in his role for about five years, but is still learning; Fullbay AI has been “a great companion for him,” providing terminology and explanations. 

“The AI really helps justify the time that we have on the action items.”

Better Customer Communication 

Why was the service manager spending so much time and energy on cleaning up the notes in the first place? To provide clear, professional information to customers so they can understand exactly what was done. Improving the clarity on service orders and invoices strengthens rapport and builds trust; customers feel informed, rather than confused.  

“The AI really helps justify the time that we have on the action items,” Nate said. “In this industry, any kind of clarity you can give the customer is advantageous.”

“It’s allowed us to communicate more clearly to the customer.”

Onward and Upward

Nate hasn’t had his techs try out Fullbay’s AI features yet, though he is eager to see how it helps them work more efficiently. With the improvements he’s already seen on the admin and customer communication side, he’s confident the tech tools will be just as useful. So are we — and we can’t wait to see what New England Fleet Services accomplishes next!