Vanarama, the UK’s largest and best known car and van leasing company, has been recognised as one of the best companies in the country for customer service and employee wellbeing. At last week’s prestigious UK Customer Experience Awards Vanarama came out on top five times with Gold Awards for: Customer Experience in a Crisis, Customers at the Heart of Everything, Online Customer Experience, Customer Centric Culture and Employees at the Heart of Everything.
Andy Alderson CEO & Founder of Vanarama
The awards are recognition for years of hard work by the leasing company which continues to grow and punch above its weight. Up against the likes of BT, Sky Bet, Virgin Money, Vauxhall and Vitality, Vanarama brought home five gold awards and one silver award. 2020 has been an eventful year for most companies but Vanarama continued to drive forward setting up a Covid-19 Small Business Support Team to give small businesses help and guidance on how to access funding available from the UK Government during the pandemic.
In recent times Vanarama has implemented multiple first to market products that has helped the leasing business deliver a first-in-class digital experience for customers. These include LeaseScanner a live price comparison tool, Vanarama Smiles a loyalty reward platform, Eligibility Checker where customers simply scan an image of their driving licence and Vanarama’s technology soft searches Experian in real-time to present customers with a likelihood of passing credit in a matter of seconds and iVan, the AI Chatbot that has created over 11,000 leads and leased more than 1,000 vehicles.
The commitment to digital stems from customer demand and a behavioural shift to online. Research has found that 85% of UK customers were fatigued with the traditional car buying process, typically spending 14 hours online researching. 76% of Vanarama’s customers start their vehicle search online, with 70% of its customers visiting the website outside of work hours. Since Vanarama launched its end-to-end fully ecommerce journey 62% of its overall orders have been via online versus 0% just two years ago.
Andy Alderson CEO & Founder of Vanarama said: “It’s undeniable that the pandemic is changing the way we do business, but it hasn’t changed how important the customer is to everything we do. At Vanarama we’re committed to offering our customers the best possible service, because that’s what our customers expect. Today consumers are used to Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, companies with technology at their core and customers in their heart are winning today and these awards show that. We have an extremely talented and hardworking team and they deserve this recognition.”
