What is the total number of vans and the total number of trucks that your company operates at peak periods?
Vans/LCV's - 7,960 LGV Trucks – 159
What are your core products and services that specifically cater for this market?
Vehicle CatalogueAt Day's Rental we provide the most diverse range of both commercial/non commercial vehicles in the UK. Cars, Vans, tippers, minibuses and a range of specialist vehicles all designed to meet the demands of our customer base. Our business significantly focuses on the public sector and corporate account market. We operate in excess of 12,000 vehicles from 11 sites across the UK.
Our core products are our LCV van and tipper fleet which we provide full support packages for from 1 day to 5 years. Offering turnkey vehicle conversion services, our customers are able to go straight to work on delivery of their new vehicles. We partner with our customers to forge long standing relationships and we do this by listening to their needs and delivering outstanding customer service. Our Trustpilot rating is the highest of any vehicle rental company represented on their platform. Something we are extremely proud of.
From our in-house maintenance teams, linked to full UK manufacturer dealership networks, all are fully under-pinned by AA national roadside assistance, providing our customers with the comfort they need if ever things go wrong. We have, as part of the CEM Day's Motor Group, the resilience to exceed expectation.
Which of these services do you believe are unique to your company?
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/about
Uncertain of what can be classed as truly unique these days in the vehicle rental sector, as most things have been tried, tested, with ranging degrees of success. At Day's Rental, a service we consider as unique, isn't something new, innovative or technology led. It's a simple thing that unfortunately so many companies get badly wrong...customer service!
As a family owned business since its beginnings in 1926, we have always firmly believed in the fundamentals of excellent service delivery. Building enduring relationships with our customers has secured high levels of business retention and our reputation brings an ever growing customer base. Doing the simple things correctly and doing them well means we are a supplier customers can trust in.
Service delivery encapsulates the whole cradle to grave experience for the customer. From the initial consultation to identify business needs, to the undertaking of additional works to provide bespoke requirements such as livery, ancillaries, CCTV etc, above all else the customer always remains at our focus.
With 63 years as an established rental business within the CEM Day Motor Group, we at Day's Rental pride ourselves in the knowledge that we are unmatched when it comes to customer service.
Please provide details about any changes in company policy/strategy over the past 12 months that will have improved your offering to fleets.
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/locations
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/news/64/new-branch-opening-in-aberystwyth
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/news/94/car-&-van-hire-at-new-watford-branch---opening-august-2019
Brexit has undoubtedly caused disruption to the business sector as a whole. Currency volatility, manufacturer price increases fuelled by looming tariffs led us to review our fleet profile and procurement approach some months ago. A decision to invest £11.5m in additional stock ahead of a post Brexit implementation was taken and this has paid real dividends in terms of vehicle availability for customers, both existing and new. The result is we have been able to increase our fleet size by 14% buoyed by increased utilisation.
Expanding our branch network. In the past 6 months we've opened a new branch in Aberystwyth and will open another in Watford this Summer. With a fully compliant Euro 6 fleet, we are now delivering vehicles to London borough councils in the aftermath of the TfL led ULEZ. From our London base we anticipate additional growth to come as HS2 prepares to commence later this year.
Recognising the move away from fossil fuels, we have significantly invested in hybrid and full EV technology. With growing numbers on the fleet, we see these fitting in well with our public sector customer base. Resultant of this we now supply an 'e rental' range of alternative fuelled vehicles.
Please provide a summary of any new rental initiatives, including a brief history of development and introduction.
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/news/98/proud-to-support-50-years-of-swansea-city-celebration
https://www.motortrader.com/events-news/2017-social-media-award-group-12-07-2017
https://www.facebook.com/daysrental/
https://twitter.com/DaysRental1 https://www.instagram.com/daysrental/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/days-rental
Always seeking new opportunities, in the past 12 months we have partnered with Drover, a national rental platform who offer customers vehicles with a price inclusive of maintenance and insurance. As a supplier this requires us to provide vehicles for up to a 12 month rental period to customers across the UK. It has been encouraging to see this aspect of the business grow to the point where we now have provided in excess of 160 vehicles on long term rentals across the UK.
We have also targeted long term rental business, fully supported by our maintenance packages and offering replacements vehicles when customers experience downtime. Our rental proposals more than match those of our sector competitors and offer significantly improved flexibility to off hire vehicles if no longer required.
Having developed our own vehicle workshops and refurbishment facilities, this enables us to carry out bespoke works to the customer's requirements prior to the point of delivery. Being able to access a turnkey service enables the customer to be assured that their vehicle build is in safe hands. More lately we have even introduced lifetime free vehicle tracking as an initiative to increase sector share. Put together we have seen significant growth in this type of hybrid medium term rental compared to more traditional contract hire arrangements.
Whilst using conventional routes to market such as press and radio advertising, like most businesses we've embraced the digital age. Through our our dedicated marketing department, we use the full force of social media to promote the brand and to communicate business to the public. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin are all used to great success in promoting our services. A measurement of the success of this initiative is that as a group we were recognised at the motortrader.com awards in 2017, by winning the Best Group Social Media category. With approximately 8.5k likes, we are able to respond both in and outside of normal working hours to our customer enquiries.
At a local level we partner with our Local Authority to promote the City of Swansea and Day's Rental. The provision of a Ford Ranger for the Tourism and Economic Development department emblazoned in a full vehicle wrap design helps to promote not only the City of Swansea in it's 50th anniversary celebrations but highlights our brand and the close relationship we share with the City of Swansea Council.
What impact have your initiatives had on customers? Please provide specific figures
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.daysrental.co.uk
Our business relationship with Drover has seen us deliver 160 cars over the past 12 months. This specific piece of business now provides a healthy return and continues to grow month on month. Customer satisfaction rates are at unprecedented levels and having supported them from the outset, Drover see us as a key partner in their business model.
As previously stated through an investment of some £11.3m, we've seen our fleet size grow by 14% over the past few months whilst at the same time we've experienced improving on existing utilisation rates, currently standing at 82%. This is positive news showing that the additional vehicles have been allocated to hires as our customer numbers continue to grow proportionately.
Our ability to deliver turnkey vehicle solutions to our corporate/public sector customers allows them to provide a specification and then step back to concentrate on their business while we work to deliver their next batch of fleet vehicles. This gives them the confidence in our abilities to deliver on time, both in numbers and on budget.
We believe in engaging with our customers in the public forum and using social media has helped attract new business opportunities. Whether it takes the form of product offers, competitions or promoting worthy causes, all outlets engage the customer to learn more of what we can support them with.
Our presence on Trustpilot has certainly strengthened our market position. This is affirmed by new customers referring to our great reviews as the reason for hiring vehicles from us. Reputation is critical to success and our growing reputation within the sector is certainly delivering results. With a rating of 9.7 we are the highest ranked true vehicle rental provider on the platform.
Our long standing partnership with Swansea City Council who this year are celebrating their 50th anniversary of gaining 'City' status, has drawn significant media attention to us and with it numerous business leads, of which many have been since developed into valuable corporate accounts.
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/news/98/proud-to-support-50-years-of-swansea-city-celebration
The provision of EV and hybrid powered LCV's under our 'e Rental' range has certainly resulted in exceptional levels of interest from the public sector. All tasked with reducing their fleet carbon footprint, we work closely with Fleet Managers to identify and support their requirements. With accelerated investment in this technology, the signs are encouraging and we view it as a exciting growth sector for us in the future.
How is your success measured by your customers in terms of KPIs?
Public Sector
We participate in numerous public sector vehicle rental frameworks where KPI's feature as a means to measure supplier performance. Our performance is always a key part of customer account meetings and cover areas such as on time deliveries/collections, vehicle rejections, invoicing queries and damage recharges. Here we seek to identify any supplier shortfalls and close the gap. I'm pleased to report that due to our monitoring processes and proactive style of management we experience high levels of customer satisfaction. For those under performing suppliers they can expect to be removed from frameworks, so it pays to exceed customer expectation and this way are able to establish ourselves as a trusted supplier and build on our market share.
Corporate Sector/Brokers
Here, Service Level Agreements (SLA's) are established to agree contractual terms and feature KPI's. These include vehicle turn downs, specifically where we may not be able to meet a customer request. Ideally while we would not wish to incur turn downs, where we do, this information is used to establish the vehicle type/location/numbers. Using this information we review stock levels and distribution, it is also used to influence future procurement decisions, the objective being to close those supply gaps.
What processes do you have in place to handle out of hours enquiries/services?
Out of hours enquiries generally fall into two categories;
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/book-online
Booking Enquiries (General Public) - We offer a fully automated online booking experience which allows customers to make a booking from any of our 11 branch locations. The booking platform configures a price taking into account any bespoke requirements the customer may have. This facility is also accessible for mobile customers via our Day's Rental App.
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/corporate-login
We also provide a Corporate Login facility for our Public Sector partners and Corporate Account holders. This service provides a vehicle reservation facility but also enables secure access to invoicing and maintenance booking.
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/maintenance
Vehicle Maintenance - We recognise that great customer service begins when things go wrong and while we hope no customer is affected by a maintenance issue, no matter what time of the day or night it is, our priority is to get the customer moving again. Our business is covered by UK wide roadside assistance provider, the AA. Aligned to this are 24/7 national coverage contracts to provide replacement windscreens and tyre services.
Contact details are provided to every customer and are secured in all our vehicles. We also have a Maintenance Manager on call to deal with out of hours events 24/7/365.
How are you helping corporate customers to manage their charges, e.g. damage, fuel, delivery/collection, excess mileage, RFT?
Many of our corporate customers access our services through public sector frameworks. Here the conditions around the additional costs associated with vehicle rental, such as damage, fuel, delivery/collection etc are covered in significant detail within the contract wording. By submitting a tender proposal the conditions are accepted as binding for both parties, the customer and the supplier. While some may consider this onerous, it does provide clarity and protection to both sides and removes any scope for dispute.
For other corporate clients we develop bespoke Service Level Agreements (SLA) taking into account their needs. Any excess charges are defined as to their structure and liability.
In terms of delivery and collection, we provide a fully managed approach. Our vehicle logistics teams are fully trained to existing BVRLA industry standards. We have our own multi-vehicle transporters to move bulk vehicle numbers to our customers, or for the smaller numbers we move these using our trained Driver/Valets. All deliveries and collections are completed using a tablet based software solution. This records the vehicle condition, mileage, fuel levels, capturing digital images to confirm status. Vehicle condition is agreed and signed digitally by both parties at the point of handover.
While we operate in adherence to the BVRLA standards for vehicle return conditions, we always work with the customer to achieve a satisfactory conclusion for all parties. Damage recharges are presented to the customer within 48 hours with supporting digital imagery. We will allow the customer the opportunity to repair any damage beyond that of fair wear and tear themselves or they can take advantage of our beneficial rates as we have our own accredited body repair facilities.
Regarding excess mileage costs, we will negotiate and offer pooled mileage arrangements for specific fleet groups. This way any vehicles whose contract mileage that is not achieved can be used to offset others that exceed their allowance.
We also notify customers in advance if contract mileage is set to be exceeded based upon our scheduled maintenance reports. This provides an opportunity to revise the rental agreement with the customer mid term to increase their annual mileage limit and avoid end of hire excess charges.
Our aim is to develop a long standing business relationship with our customers. Key to this is maintaining good communications and we do this by holding periodic account meetings where we listen and discuss their account, offering solutions to emerging issues
Please outline how you are addressing fleets’ environmental concerns
With experienced fleet management professionals employed within our business, they guide and support our corporate clients to the optimum performing vehicle. Together we
focus not only on current environmental concerns, but on the emerging environmental challenges fleet operators face also.
Vehicle procurement decisions provide the very latest emission technology vehicles to our customers. For diesel, this means Euro 6.2 engines and to compliment this we provide full EV/hybrid LCV's under our 'e Rental' range. Having the added benefit of an Iveco franchise within our group stable, we are currently in discussions to provide CNG fueled trucks to a London Borough Council, as part of their strategy to manage the recently introduced ULEZ.
Providing consultation to customer on the benefits of vehicle tracking, we are able to save them significant costs in unnecessary mileage fuel use and associated emissions. As an incentive to long term customer commitment we offer this and system support training as part of a total fleet solution. We also undertake speed limiting on LCV's at the customer's request. Reducing fleet average speed is proven to have a positive effect fuel consumption, harmful emissions and traffic collisions. These initiatives when combined deliver a positive effect on environmental performance.
Please provide five reasons why your company deserves to win this award.
Five reasons why Day's Rental deserve to win this award are;
Customer Service - We believe reputation fuels the growth of a business so it is critical we can measure this. Inviting customers to comment on your business performance may be perceived as risky strategy by some, but we firmly believe we deliver unparalleled levels of customer service. So much so, we embarked on a membership of Trustpilot to do just that and our belief was repaid. As the highest rated 'true' vehicle rental company in the market sector and we invite you to review our Trustpilot customer feedback.
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.daysrental.co.uk
Value - For some, value may mean simply price, for others it may be service, but there are additional factors such as vehicle type, suitability and stock. As the supplier, it is important we interpret our customers' needs and provide a solution that builds value into the relationship to secure long term business.
Stock availability - With unfettered access to group vehicle stock, we are able to respond quickly to customer demand. We purchase our complete fleet outright so are not restricted by manufacturer buy back quotas which limit some of the larger sector competitor’s ability to access vehicles in the volumes they would wish. With 14% fleet growth in the past 6 months, we have now grown to the 5th largest vehicle rental company in the UK.
Environmental - We are rightly proud of our environmental credentials and of those that support us. Committing only to those companies who share our vision, our ISO 14001 accreditation in Environmental Management is a measurement of our achievements in this area. A forward projecting company, we continually invest in our fleet to ensure we meet both the current and any future legislative changes that may impact on our customers' environmental objectives. Full EV and hybrid solutions have been a part of our fleet stable for the past 18 months and we provide demonstrator vehicles to our corporate customers to help effect change within their own organisations.
Commitment - We are a family business, with values built on fairness, value and service. Our customers are our primary focus and we believe this to be the secret of our success, so much so that we are now the fifth largest rental provider in the UK. That said, we don't forget the journey of how we arrived at this position. We pride ourselves on doing the simple things exceptionally well.
Please provide testimonials from customers about how your company has helped their business to reduce costs, become more efficient and be more environmentally friendly.
Rhondda Cynon Taff Council
We have used Day's Rental for many years, knowing them to be knowledgeable on the vehicle types we require for operational use. They are always able to offer a numbers of options for us to consider and nothing is too much trouble for their friendly attentive staff.
Vehicles are delivered in a timely manner and are usually new /nearly new, so we know we have the latest in design standards and have vehicles that are reliable. Our current seasonal tippers are all Euro 6.2 and this goes some way to help the council in meeting our carbon reduction programme. Downtime is zero, and staff are happy in having new vehicles and reduced fuel costs.
We are now taking delivery of petrol hybrid cars for use as pool vehicles, again another step in reducing our carbon footprint. Once again, supported by Days Rental, our expectations have been exceeded.
Their speed of response, attentiveness, modern fleet and outstanding customer service make them an easy choice as a supplier.
Pobl - Housing and Community Care Association
'Over the past three years I have worked closely with Days Rental who has provided our Group with various vehicles from the basic type of van to the fully loaded kitted out van. Over this period we
have received excellent customer service with fantastic and knowledgeable staff who provide a first class service and product.
The relationship we have built up allows us to work with members of the Days team who are extremely professional to help us understand the different types of vehicles and leasing options that meet our needs prior to making any purchase. Additionally, the ongoing customer service we receive during the contract of the vehicle is excellent together with the advice provided regarding environmental factors.'
https://www.daysrental.co.uk/news/96/pobl-group-collect-fleet-of-peugeot-partner-vans
Alun Griffiths (Contractors) Ltd
Following a recent high profile tender award, we required an additional 40 vehicles within a one month time-frame. We took this opportunity to look at our fleet as a whole.
After some consultation with our vehicle providers and Days, it was evident that Days were not only able to provide, newer, more efficient, up to date vehicles well within the time-frame, but they had the expertise and facilities to equip the vehicles with safety critical items required.
Our business has seen a reduction in fuel costs, overall rental costs and vehicle defects due to newer vehicles plus a happier workforce.
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