As with every business, having the best tools of the trade make life much easier for my guys. As locks get more and more complicated, our teams have to constantly update our tools. 20 years ago hardly any cars had transponders and engine immobilizers… now it’s almost standard. Many houses didn’t even have deadlocks, now we arrive at houses with triple point locks which are a much tougher nut to crack.
But without question our most important tool is our GPS. We are locals, and we know our way around Melbourne but it’s our GPS that ensure in times of heavy traffic, our guys can arrive at your Melbourne lockout emergency in the fastest possible time.
When it comes to GPS systems, all systems are not equal. Here’s why.
- Some cheaper systems simply estimate travel times based on allowed maximum speeds and average recorded travel times between place A and B. These systems are pretty much useless in providing an estimate of how long it will take to get anywhere in Melbourne, as traffic is always a factor.
- Some systems make use of user reported data with regard to traffic problems.
- The system we use tracks the real time speeds of cars in and around Melbourne travelling down thousands of roads, and using this data is able to give very accurate estimates of travel times as well as telling us which routes are moving faster at any one time. Using a quality GPS with such a tracking system is often the difference between us reaching an emergency lockout in 20 minutes rather than 35…which might be the difference between melted icecream in the shopping, or not!
- We use a customer relationship management system that allows us to track where any one of our vans is at any time, and what their case load is. The result? We always know which van is going to be able to get to you the fastest so you are let back inside as quickly as possible.
That’s how we approach things at TopLock. We keep ourselves up to date on new locks, new techniques, and are always trying to find new ways we can improve our service.
