Fleet Assist Launches New Courtesy Car Program To Help Independent Garages Win Corporate Business

Fleet Assist launched its new courtesy car programme to independent service outlets at its biennial open day.

The Cambridgeshire-based company provides contract hire and leasing organisations with a nationwide network of more than 8,000 service outlets which undertake service, maintenance and repair work on vehicles supplied to customers across the UK.

The network, a mix of both franchise and independent garages, is supported with a range of partners offering services and products at preferential member rates negotiated by Fleet Assist.

Joint managing director Mike Smith explained that contract hire and leasing companies and their customers – end-user fleets – increasingly expected service outlets to offer courtesy car provision.

While franchise garages in the Fleet Assist network typically have their own courtesy car arrangements with their respective manufacturer partners, the same is not true for independent service outlets.

The new courtesy car programme is being managed by Stephen Polhill, a member of Fleet Assist’s technical team, and Charlene Turner, fleet administrator.

The initiative is part of Fleet Assist’s ever-expanding range of Network Product Services, which sees an array of partners offering services and products at preferential member rates negotiated by Fleet Assist.

The courtesy car programme gives service outlets access to a full range of new vehicles from city cars to MPVs across a wide range of marques at competitive rates. Vehicles can be acquired on one or two-year operating lease agreements with a range of mileage parameters.

Fleet Assist is currently working on a number of other benefits that are expected to be added to its menu of Network Product Services later in 2016.

The Fleet Assist open day, entitled ‘meet the fleet’, saw representatives from more than 2,000 service outlets across the franchise and independent sectors:

• Participate in group question and answer sessions with leasing company representatives and discuss key trends and operational issues
• Have one-to-one discussions with individual leasing companies
• Meet the Fleet Assist team and receive demonstrations of the company’s systems and processes during an office guided tour
• Meet a number of Fleet Assist’s strategic partners which support the network and were exhibiting
• View an exhibition of both classic and new cars of special interest

 

 

During the panel sessions, management level representatives of Fleet Assist contract hire and leasing company customers’ Agility Fleet, Alphabet (GB), Lex Autolease, Pendragon Vehicle Management and Tusker were quizzed by service outlet representatives.

They heard that provision of a courtesy car service was one of the key requirements to securing fleet service, maintenance and repair work from leasing companies alongside factors such as competitive labour rates and providing a vehicle collection and delivery service.

Mr Smith said: “We believe our new courtesy car programme will prove to be extremely popular as it is clear that offering the service to independent service outlets is essential to their long term business success.”

Fleet Assist is the leading supply chain management specialist to a significant number of the UK’s leading contract hire and leasing companies collectively operating more than 700,000 vehicles.