The company thought it was doing the right thing, but clients started requesting anything but the Prius.

Harvey explains: “You’re not providing an environmentally-friendly service if you have a Prius nearby, but you’ve got to get a different car that’s further away to do the pick-up.”

Nine months after the Toyota hybrids joined the London Executive fleet, the vehicles were sold and the company began its search for an alternative.

“We needed our vehicles to be fit-for-purpose, as well as being green,” says Harvey. “The E300 Bluetec hybrid fitted the bill, because it not only met all-important environmental credentials, but it also meets our clients’ expectations.”

The E-Class fleet provides the company’s business class service, while the S-Class cars on London Executive’s fleet are used for its first class service.

Vehicles are sourced through a mixed funding approach, with cars either purchased outright or sourced via hire purchase agreements.

They are then kept for a maximum of three years or 100,000 miles before being sold through auction.

London Executive recognises that its drivers are as important as the vehicles they drive and six years ago it began transforming its recruitment and training processes.

Harvey, as one of the company’s founders, has been involved since the business was formed in 1998. In those early days there was just one controller and five cars providing a private hire service in the capital.

But the company quickly established itself and as it began to grow it moved to its new headquarters in Bermondsey. Harvey says: “We moved into the new premises six years ago and since then the business has continued to go from strength to strength.”

In fact, the company has trebled in size since 2007 and Harvey told Fleet News that when the business moved into its new home, the senior team decided to take stock of where they had come from and where they were going.

“We started looking in detail at how we could make the experience a lot better for our clients and our drivers,” he says.

“Our drivers are the customer-facing part of the business, but one of the weakest aspects of our industry is driver retention and the quality of driver.”

London Executive recognised it needed to invest in its drivers to drive up standards and deliver the customer experience it was looking for.

“We started by speaking to the drivers to find out what concerns they had and then addressed them,” says Harvey.