About the Company
Basecamp Explorer Kenya (BCEK) is one of the leading tourism companies in Masai Mara. They run safari camps across the majestic Masai Mara. Basecamp Explorer strives to offer an authentic safari experience for its clients by partnering with the local Maasai community. Basecamp Explorer Kenya was founded in 1998 by Svein, following a life-changing meeting with Maasai Chief Ole Taek.
Today Basecamp employs over 230 people. The company has received several awards and accolades across all its camps. Some of the prominent ones that they’ve received include Travelers’ Choice Awards from Tripadvisor, Silver Eco-Rated Awards from Eco Tourism - Kenya, African Responsible Tourism Award, etc.
We spoke with Tyson Makamu Mudi the transport coordinator at Basecamp Explorer Kenya. He has been working with the company since 2016. His daily duties involve coordinating transfer services for guests between airports, hotels, camps, and tourist attraction areas in Kenya. Tyson spends his free time reading books, visiting attraction sites, and studying a few more courses to grow his skills.
Before Switching to Simply Fleet
Basecamp Explorer Kenya offers safari adventures ranging from 3 days to 9 days. They carry out their operations with 12 Land Cruisers used mainly for game drives and transferring guests across Maasai Mara. Given the busy nature of their business, Tyson was having a tough time collating vehicle data in Excel sheets. Basecamp was logging services and fill-ups in Excel which was prone to errors and missed entries. And at certain times vehicle services were being forgotten. Tyson realized that their vehicle maintenance process needed to be streamlined and data had to be synced indirectly from the drivers rather than it being collected and filled in by himalone.
“Excel is quite complicated at times. It is not something that everybody can fill at the same time since this will always cause some conflict or you may miss out some detail”
- Tyson Mudi
To make his work easier, he started searching for a fleet maintenance software. He found Simply Fleet best met BCEK’s requirements. It had everything that they needed for vehicle and driver management. His main task was getting the drivers trained on the software, but to his surprise, he found that the drivers took to using it quite easily. One of his main reasons to choose Simply Fleet is its ease of use. He, as well as his drivers, find it very easy to navigate and punch in the data required for their fleet’s maintenance.
After Switching to Simply Fleet
Base camp has been using Simply Fleet since July 2020. One of their most-used features is logging daily mileage. Their drivers are trained to enter the vehicle’s mileage at the start and end of the day. This lets Tyson monitor the distance traveled by each driver every day. It also helps in triggering maintenance reminder notifications more accurately. Tyson also logs services performed on his vehicles, as well as any other expenses incurred. This helps him keep track of the service and running costs.
“Any expenses incurred by the drivers while on safari it is logged into Simply Fleet along with the receipts"
-Tyson Mudi
Another feature that has helped Base camp is the logging of fill-ups. The drivers log all fill-ups that they make in the vehicle and Tyson gets to see the fuel efficiency in real-time. Regularly he gets to compare the fuel costs and efficiency of vehicles to check which ones are dropping and which might need a tune-up.
“I am very happy that most of my drivers and managers have started picking it and understanding it.”
- Tyson Mudi
Basecamp Explorer’s Plan Forward
As business picks up after the pandemic, Tyson foresees BCEK using a lot more of the Trips feature as his drivers will start making multiple trips a day. He also sees the benefit in performing pre-trip vehicle inspection checks by his drivers.
"The Vehicle inspection will be very good for me. The driver can inspect vehicles once per week or maybe it can be done daily. The drivers can carry out daily inspections and make ensure they have everything they need before they start their safari"
- Tyson Mudi
All in all, BCEK is very happy with the decision to use Simply Fleet and we hope that we can serve them for a long time in the future.
“This is a very good and ideal software for our company to use”
- Tyson Mudi
.png)
.svg)
