What are you doing about these issues?

Liz Hollands We’ve had to make our drivers aware of alternative possibilities because we have had difficulty arranging hires late or out of hours.

Usually, if a hire is needed late in the day it’s because servicing or other work to the driver’s own vehicle is incomplete, and we are not notified by the garage early enough.

The remedy is to get the drivers to check on progress with the servicing garage in the early afternoon.

For out of regular office hours and weekend requirements, cars can usually be hired from an airport location, with the driver having to get himself to his nearest airport – which then depends on him having the ability to get to the airport and pay for a rental car.  So neither of these solutions is ideal.

I also suggest to drivers that they take photos of the hire car upon its return, and if we genuinely believe we are right, I will always challenge any charges that we might receive.

Debbie Floyde We have channelled our frustrations through our contract hire and leasing company which is always very quick to respond… although I have been known to speak directly to a branch if need be. And I have also extended our pool car fleet at one location in order to mitigate the use of daily rental cars.

Gary Black Rental is a distressed purchase to us and therefore only used as a last resort. Unfortunately sometimes there is no quick fix alternative so I put up with the pitfalls while challenging any charges that I feel are unjustified.

If there was one thing you could improve about daily rental, what would it be?

Liz Hollands Longer opening hours to match the sort of hours that people actually work.

Debbie Floyde It would have to be improved service levels and punctuality.

Gary Black I would like all rental companies to work off a rate card that made it clear what your invoice was going to look like. It’s all of the additional costs that swell the invoice.

Close attention has to be taken to what is charged for deliveries to home or work locations, cost of fuel per litre and excess mileage charges, etc.

The Fleet News view

Fleet News recently ran a poll asking fleet managers about the problems that they had with daily rental; perhaps, unsurprisingly, damage charges and refuelling issues were the main areas of contention.

It seems clear that daily rental companies have some issues that appear to echo loudly throughout the UK fleet industry which need addressing quickly if they are not to hamper the future of this business.

However, these are not insurmountable problems; a simple process of clearer communication, better defined paper trails and perhaps some flexibility in working hours would probably appease the majority, if not all, within fleet.