No matter how many vehicles you operate, choosing a contract hire provider is a critical business decision.
Cars and vans are not only one of the biggest overheads incurred by companies, if they are poorly managed they can also become a very frustrating distraction; particularly if time and resource is being taken away from your core business activities to resolve vehicle problems.
According to Phil Elms, sales director at Sandicliffe Motor Contracts, sourcing the right contract hire company should be about finding a suitable long-term ‘partner’ who doesn’t just lease vehicles, but can take away all of the stress by making sure your fleet runs smoothly.
“Contract hire is one of those services whereby many people assume all approaches are the same,” said Phil. “This couldn’t be further from the truth”.
“At Sandicliffe, we are meticulous in our approach. We inspect every vehicle ourselves before it is delivered to the driver, work on first name terms with customers and remove all of the day-to-day management from them, and we audit every vehicle at the end of its agreement as part of our total quality control procedure.
“By doing so, we get things right first time, we micromanage each and every vehicle, and we ensure that drivers remain mobile and productive.”
Phil explains that the contract hire industry is divided into 3 main categories, with the major bank and manufacturer-owned leasing companies at one end, the smaller brokers at the other and independent providers, such as Sandicliffe, in the middle.
“We adopt a very different approach to some of the cheap, brokered contract hire deals available online, and our processes (particularly at the start and end of every contract) also differ dramatically to the call centre approach adopted by some of the majors,” said Phil.
“Its because of our independence, attention to detail, and our ability to offer a complete national infrastructure and 24/7 support, but with a far more personal approach, that many fleets large and small have made us their long-term partner. Particularly, when they see the on-going money and time savings we achieve by managing their fleet so carefully.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.