Customer Success Story
With Rental Company SitePro
Trackunit hasn’t changed us. It’s enhanced us.
SitePro Rentals is making a splash across America’s Deep South but, John Hiatt and Abe Farrington say that would have been so much more difficult without the state-of-the-art telemetry Trackunit gives the Texan startup.
SitePro Rentals is no ordinary company. Formed in early 2021 during the pandemic, it has an avowed aim to become the best rentals provider in the world and, after an hour in the company of John Hiatt and Abe Farrington, you know they are going to get there.
These are veterans who haven’t just been around the block. They’ve been back, above, below and then around again for good measure, getting to know every inch of the industry as they go along.
Start-up mentality
John Hiatt, Vice President of Sales & Operations, cut his teeth at the likes of Hertz, Caterpillar and United Rentals over 30 years. District Manager, Abe Farrington, followed a similar trajectory. He began at BPS Equipment in 1995 before spending more than 20 years at H&E Equipment.
Spun out of Briggs Equipment, SitePro already had a $75M USD legacy fleet in place, infrastructure across Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia. Above all, they have a desire to make things happen as signaled by a capital expenditure spend for 2022 of circa$100M USD. As they look towards 2023 and beyond, they have ambitions to double their fleet size again.
But, while SitePro has the know-how within the team and the branch network, it’s the start-up mentality imbuing the organization that is quickly emerging as its USP.
“We have a special team and a special group. We’re determined to do things differently,” says Farrington. “We’re putting together the processes and we’re not always getting it right but we’re getting better.”
“We came into this convinced that there was a confusion when rental was combined with other businesses and we wanted to avoid that muddle and be lazer-focused on rental,” he adds. “We don’t necessarily want to be the biggest, but we do want to be the best.
“We eat, breathe and live this.”
To make that happen, SitePro set out to work with the best whenever and wherever possible. And, when it came to building a telemetry solution, the conversation soon turned to Trackunit.
“We wanted the best telematics solution for costs, giving customers the data they need,” said Hiatt.
“It needed to be simple, easy and allow us how to communicate and get the best information possible.”
John Hiatt, Vice President of Sales & Operations
“I’d heard Trackunit had a simpler, more cutting-edge solution,” he says. “We kind of already knew then that the Trackunit DualID II solution was the future, and then we discovered that little thing you call Trackunit Kin.”
SitePro rents out breakers and excavators. We knew about the excavator utilization but did not have a way to gather data on the breaker. The Trackunit Kin devices have enabled SitePro to keep tabs on their usage and their location.
“I’d never seen those vibration trackers before,” says the VP of Sales & Operations. “I was intrigued and wanted to learn more. It’s given us an awareness and a predictability that we didn’t have before.”
“That awareness enabled us to go to our customers and say to them, you don’t need six breakers, four will do the job,” he says. “The Raw units and the Kin units both give us the data to help our customers rent what they truly need.” This knowledge helps reduce their spend on excess rental equipment, saves money on fuel and operating costs and reduces carbon emissions on the jobsite.
“When we get to that point with a customer, we’re in a partnership with them. We’re no longer selling to them, we’re part of their team.”
John Hiatt, Vice President of Sales & Operations
Part of the arsenal
Hiatt adds the sales team at SitePro are “ecstatic” to have Trackunit on board, as their IoT devices make their job so much easier. “To have it as part of their arsenal is a game changer,” he says. Our decision to add key- pads to nearly all of our equipment allows us to assist our customers in a variety of ways. Contractors can set individual codes for their employees to track usage, safety training or violations and help determine when damage occurred. Additionally, an idle asset on a jobsite can’t be used by unauthorized users or contractors. The data we get from code usage and lockout pays off with less unauthorized use and damage. When damage does occur the data we can resource from Trackunit leads easier discussions on damage with our customers.
Of course, it also mitigates against theft. Farrington recalls one occasion where two generators were taken out of a yard in Houston. “One was so new that we hadn’t yet had the chance to fit a device on it and needless to say, we didn’t get that one back,” he says. “We know what happened to it and where it went, but we can’t get it.”
Farrington says they’ve recovered seven out of eight machines fitted with Trackunit Raw devices. Hiatt echoes that this has given them and their customers a degree of assurance on security that makes the investment worthwhile.
“We’re strong on mantras and one of them is that whatever we do, we must do well. We strive to give our best ‘yes’ to customers in any given situation,” says Hiatt. “Not a yes that we can’t live up to or where we over-extend, but a truthful commitment we can deliver upon. We have to be careful not to erode the trust of our business.”
“That’s what Trackunit does for us, it can give us more information to help get to our best yes.” he says. “Trackunit hasn’t changed us. It’s enhanced us.”
It means when problems do occasionally occur, Hiatt and Farrington are able to pick up the phone and get it handled by the customer success team in a no-fuss, no-drama manner that gets the business back on track as quickly as possible.
“Having a problem is not the issue,” says Farrington. “It’s how you deal with the problem that matters. I can feel it in my heart and actually prove it with my brain that the Trackunit team cares about the success of SitePro.”
Hiatt agrees: “For a young company, it’s enhanced our ability so serve our customers and accelerated our development far beyond what it would have been without telematics. We’re a company that can grow together with Trackunit.”
About
SitePro Rentals is an innovative and rapidly-growing equipment rental start-up run by a team of industry veterans with a passion for creating a world-class customer experience. More than just talk, their goal is to go beyond great customer service and become an indispensable partner, helping customers drive uptime and productivity. The SitePro experience is a lot more than great equipment, they also have an industry-leading team that’s fanatical about customer service. SitePro is an ESOP-owned company and launched with locations across the Southeast. They’re a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sammons Industrial and part of the Sammons Enterprises family of companies.
Company size
62 employees
Founded
2021
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