Europcar

At Europcar last year, results needed to improve but staff were only doing what they had to. They lacked a sparkle and results were below what the business needed. They were struggling with low service levels, were losing market share and customers through poor service. Their solution was an organisation wide initiative, starting with the team of Directors and key influencers.

Our brief

Our business objectives are to drive revenue and service this year so any customer service initiative needs to be weighed against revenue and the focus for staff is how service in the short term benefits us in the long term through repeat rentals and reputation.

Our approach

The programme produced a change in culture to one of internal and external service.

The key aims of the workshops were to:

  • Reduce the query to rental rate to 25% – A reduction to 23% has been achieved in the first six months and is continuing its downward trend.
  • Bring into active operation empowerment tables which provided guidance on ownership of customer complaints so that the person who was dealing with the customer could immediately take action e.g. "I'm sorry your car was not as clean as you expected here is a £10 voucher"
  • Introduce new procedures highlighting that receiving and taking action on customer feedback was an essential tool to business success. As customers previously had to write in to Head Office, now we were encouraging everyone to take on board feedback as quickly as possible and anything that needed action (and wasn't dealt with at point of sale e.g. if the customer had dropped an all ears card rather than telling the Agent) to be dealt with within one week.
  • Focus on Customer Service standards to achieve 90% plus in our internal customer service standards

The programme was completed to help managers focus on their responsibility in bringing the importance of service to life within their Stations. We emphasized that staff commitment is one of the biggest influence of change and the workshop focused on how they could work to build this commitment. These workshops were followed up by a half day workshop for all Station staff and then the Network Support Centre went through a similar 'journey' focusing on their internal relationships, what people need and how they can be more proactive in support of R & C (revenue and customer) goals!

Following these workshops there was real motivation and commitment to change and acceptance that we could all make a difference to achieving our vision of delivering extraordinary customer service. As a consequence our staff started to question certain internal procedures that they felt were not customer friendly and changes were implemented. For example changes were made to our fuel calculations/charging and working patterns changed to ensure more face-to-face contact.

Key outputs

When comparing our Satisfaction (All Ears) results against last year we have seen a 236% improvement.
What is most positive about these results are the comments customers have made with regard to our people.
"Friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, understanding, professional" The programme encouraged individuals to consider their contribution at the moment and then work on small but sustainable steps that they could take that would make a difference.
With this focus not only is the query to rental ratio dropping but also the service 'stories' to discuss with new business clients really brings the focus to life, for example:

  • In Swansea a customer was waiting for a car to be delivered 25 miles away but didn't have their driving licence. A member of staff drove to that person to do a DVLA check 'on site' so that the person could drive away with the car… “ I wouldn't have done that before”
  • In Dover they have tidied the office and have all the correct leaflets on display. They are really focusing on how they answer the phone to ensure it is bright and breezy.
  • In Glasgow, last night there was a customer who was in a rush to get his flight. When normally they'd explain that the bus would arrive shortly, this time one of the people on duty drove the customer over to the airport so he didn't miss his flight.