“Businesses tell us that they want to speak to people,” says Carly. “With the BMW Partnership programme small businesses get an account manager to look after them. Beyond that, everyone has access to senior management in Alphabet – I think that’s important. Companies need to trust us to deliver and provide a good service.”
Mark adds that while Alphabet remains predominantly a business car finance house for those companies that have fleet requirements of 25 cars and above, it can still service smaller clients.
“Obviously it’s important that when a small business director goes into a BMW dealer they find BMW Finance. But if they only sign up for one BMW we can provide finance for that company’s other cars, whether they are a BMW or not.”
This is useful to know – it does mean that you can organise your business cars through a single source. For example, run a BMW yourself as the business owner, but also then get Alphabet to provide the finance for your sales staff who might run a Mondeo, a Golf or an Audi A3. It doesn’t matter what the brand is says Mark.
“We’re currently working on an Alphabet presentation to smaller customers that makes it clearer what we’re doing,” adds Carly.
“We need to give proximity to smaller customers and ensure we communicate in the right way with them.”
Which reminds me, it’s about time I caught up with them regarding this. In the meantime, if you do want to know something about salaray sacrifice and how it works for company cars, then you might find Mark’s feature helpful. You can read it here: Advice – Salary sacrifice and company cars.
