The automotive fleet industry is celebrating a groundbreaking partnership between AutoGuru, Australia’s premier automotive repair and maintenance platform, and Custom Fleet, one of the largest mobility specialists in Australia and New Zealand. This collaboration is set to revolutionise the decades-old process of maintenance repair authorisation, driving unprecedented efficiency and innovation across the sector.
For years, the traditional call-based system for authorising fleet vehicle repairs, tyre replacements, and scheduled maintenance has caused frustration for suppliers and fleet managers alike. The system’s inefficiency often led to long wait times, inconsistent communication, and a reliance on manual processes. While solutions like the UK-based 1Link system attempted to address these issues, they never fully delivered on their promise of digitisation and still required manual intervention.
Now, AutoGuru’s FleetGuru® platform is changing the game, fully digitising the maintenance authorisation process and enhancing collaboration between suppliers and fleet managers.
Digitisation: A Long-Awaited Industry Shift
AutoGuru’s FleetGuru portal offers suppliers a digital channel to submit quotes for vehicle maintenance and repairs directly to fleet managers. The system eliminates the need for phone calls, significantly reducing wait times and streamlining the approval process. With over 8,000 suppliers in AutoGuru’s network, including dealers, national groups, and independent specialists, the platform manages maintenance authorisation for 130,000 vehicles online, transforming the way the fleet industry operates.
FleetGuru integrates both OEM and aftermarket service and parts data to generate accurate quotes for passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and heavy equipment such as trailers and refrigeration units. By digitising a once cumbersome process, AutoGuru ensures efficiency and transparency for suppliers and fleet managers.
Since its launch, FleetGuru has seen 96% of suppliers embrace online quoting, marking a significant shift away from the call-dependent approach.
A Smarter Solution with Maintenance Intelligence Engine (MIE)
At the heart of AutoGuru’s innovation lies the Maintenance Intelligence Engine (MIE), an adaptive learning technology that delivers predictive cost insights and automates approvals for fleet managers. MIE leverages data on parts pricing, manufacturer repair times, and supplier labour rates to analyse millions of pricing inputs. This ensures accurate, real-time quotes tailored to individual service providers.
“MIE acts as a digital assistant for fleet controllers,” says Eden Shirley, CEO of AutoGuru. “It flags potential issues, auto-approves jobs that meet pre-defined criteria, and provides predictive insights, helping managers optimise costs and workflows.”
In recent trials, MIE successfully auto-approved 69% of incoming job tickets for a partner organisation, showcasing the platform’s potential to save time and reduce manual labour in fleet management.
Custom Fleet’s Leap Towards Innovation
By partnering with AutoGuru, Custom Fleet has adopted FleetGuru to manage its diverse portfolio of passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles, and heavy equipment. This shift highlights Custom Fleet’s commitment to operational excellence and innovation.
“Partnering with AutoGuru is an exciting milestone for Custom Fleet as we continue to enhance the services we provide to our clients,” says Chris Tulloch, CEO of Custom Fleet ANZ. “With FleetGuru, we’ve transformed the traditional call-based maintenance authorisation process into an efficient online solution.”
Suppliers working with Custom Fleet have also reported substantial improvements. “It takes the pain away from sitting on the phone for 30+ minutes waiting in a queue to seek approval on a job,” noted one supplier. “The overall efficiency and real-time updates make this a game-changer.”
Beyond Maintenance: A Comprehensive Solution
The partnership also extends AutoGuru’s capabilities to cover heavy vehicles and equipment, ensuring compliance with chain-of-responsibility regulations. Custom Fleet now benefits from enhanced reporting, vehicle scheduling, downtime management, and other advanced tools to improve fleet operations.
AutoGuru’s FleetGuru is rapidly becoming the go-to platform for fleet maintenance approvals, with 12,000 service providers and several fleet management organisations already onboard across Australia and New Zealand. The platform not only accelerates approvals but also ensures faster payments to suppliers, reducing bottlenecks and improving satisfaction across the supply chain.
A New Standard for the Industry
The AutoGuru-Custom Fleet partnership sets a new benchmark for efficiency in the fleet management industry. By digitising a once laborious process and leveraging advanced technologies like MIE, this collaboration addresses long-standing inefficiencies and paves the way for smarter, data-driven decision-making.
“Our mission for FleetGuru is all about simplifying fleet maintenance and giving fleet managers powerful tools to optimise their operations,” says Eden Shirley. “We’re thrilled to partner with Custom Fleet and ensure that more businesses benefit from the platform’s time-saving, cost-cutting capabilities.”
As the automotive industry continues to evolve, partnerships like this underscore the importance of technology-driven solutions in addressing persistent challenges. For fleet managers, suppliers, and service providers, the AutoGuru and Custom Fleet collaboration represents a significant leap forward, proving that innovation can drive efficiency and transform business operations.
