Advanced vehicle telematics paves the way for smarter vehicle utilization, improved maintenance, accurate navigation, and great driving experience. With the deep insights into vehicle intelligence— including driver behavior—that advanced telematics provides, customers, dealerships, and automotive OEMs can explore great opportunities. While a handful of big players in the automotive industry provide advanced telematics, Guidepoint Systems is the leading vehicle telematics and services company that is servicing original equipment manufacturers and automotive dealerships. Unlike other telematics solutions, the company’s vehicle telematics offering not only includes the device but also call center support services and apps to provide the complete connected vehicle experience to the members.
“Our tools can monitor the vehicle’s health for fuel efficiency, driver safety, engine health, and more”
“Either manufacturers can install our telematics device in the factory, directly into the car, or dealers can offer it as an accessory,” says Tom Gafford, CTO, VP of Marketing, and Co-Founder of Guidepoint. At any time, if a customer faces issues with the vehicle, she or he can activate the built-in panic button to set the support team—stationed at Guidepoint’s call centers in Fort Worth, Texas, and Guadalajara, Mexico— in action. The remote support team can track the crucial vehicle data and real-time location to direct necessary assistance to the customer in need. “We also provide full concierge services that drive the customer experience. Increased traceability, advanced human-machine interactions, and foolproof safety and mapping help OEMs to stay relevant in today’s highly competitive automotive market” adds Gafford. As an additional value, Guidepoint offers vehicle theft protection and apps for parents to track the driving patterns and real- time location of their teenage children. Customers can claim discounts on auto insurance for their intelligence-enabled vehicles. Having complete control over all the data exchange that takes place, customers can decide what vehicle data needs to be shared with the remote support team in a secure way, without hampering the disaster response work.
“Our tools can monitor the vehicle’s health for fuel efficiency, driver safety, engine health, and more,” says Gafford. With this monitoring ability, dealerships can identify issues and provide repair-time estimates to the customer even before she or he arrives with the vehicle. With proactive alerts, customers can avail the preventive maintenance benefit and avoid needless expenditure.
Guidepoint also provides tracking services to car rental companies for increased fleet visibility. Reports suggest that at any given time, rental companies are unable to account for about 10 percent of their vehicle fleet due to varied reasons. Guidepoint’s GPS enabled service allows rental companies to track key KPI’s of unreturned vehicles, fuel usage and odometer readings to optimize and reduce the cost of managing the fleet. The system also monitors car performance and its usage, while providing alerts for the maintenance schedule.
From a marketing aspect, Guidepoint provides white-label products depending on the client’s preference. Impressed by the ingenuity of the products and the value they bring, some clients also sell the products though their distribution channels.
Guidepoint’s software migration from physical servers to the AWS cloud is a critical advancement that has made the company to be future- ready. While the first generation devices fitted into cars were as big as shoe boxes, today’s devices are of the size of mobile phones, thanks to product innovation and optimization. Retaining the core architecture in the device has helped Guidepoint save on redesigning. In the age of progressing vehicle intelligence and innovations surrounding vehicle safety and efficiency, Guidepoint provides sophisticated products and services by leveraging modern technologies.