United Rentals Reports Increasing Digital Adoption
United Rentals reported strong adoption across digital platforms including Total Control, United Rentals Mobile App, and the online marketplace. During Q1 2024, more than 70 percent of United Rentals' revenue came from customers who use one or more digital tools to support their safety, productivity and sustainability objectives.
Customers are using United Rentals’ digital platforms throughout the rental experience, the company said, including renting equipment, checking real-time status of deliveries, placing service calls and tracking status, taking equipment off rent, to making payments. Also, customers monitor usage remotely through telematics to right size the fleet on the project, ensuring that the rented fleet is utilized effectively.
Telematics data is available through Total Control, a cloud-based worksite management solution that offers visibility and insights into boosting productivity, equipment utilization, tracking GHG emissions and connecting Worksite Performance Solutions such as like equipment and site access management. The company has the largest number of telematics-enabled equipment in the industry with more than 375,000 units.
“The industry is continuously evolving, and digital solutions have helped strengthen our partnership with customers,” said Paul Maddison, director of digital innovation, United Rentals. “Our team is focused on simplifying the customer experience, as well as providing relevant alerts and notifications throughout the rental process.”
Within the last year, United Rentals launched a series of new capabilities and feature enhancements to the self-service digital experience that help customers streamline the rental process and make more informed decisions for their worksites.
- Manage Payments: Users can view, share and pay invoices through the United Rentals Mobile App, in addition to Total Control.
- Notifications: Users can customize email and text notifications for tasks across all project stages from quote through final invoice.
- Availability and Substitutions: Provides customers with availability information and substitution options before checkout, reduces friction during the rental process, saves customers time and preserves project schedules.
- Equipment Access Management: Permissioned users can view equipment access PIN codes within the United Rentals Mobile App to better ensure equipment productivity and safety.
- Order History: With one click, customers can access all current and past rental orders on the website and add the entire order to the checkout cart. The feature also includes smart filters so users can intuitively navigate transaction history.
Feature enhancements are now available to customers through United Rentals digital platforms.
“As the world's largest rental provider, we can provide customers with benchmarks to help understand how their fleet management compares to other industry leaders. We partner with customers to identify opportunities and drive positive outcomes. These are all enabled by our digital tools," said Ty Campbell, director of customer success, United Rentals.
For more information on the United Rentals suite of digital tools, visit UnitedRentals.com/digital.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.