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Ease of renting key to sector’s future, says BVRLA panel

Stuart Miles, chief revenue officer at Nexus Rental, said: "If the transaction isn't easy, you quickly lose [the customer]."

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Speakers on the ‘Through the Customer Lens: The Future of the Rental Experience’ panel, at the BVRLA Industry Insight Conference, said that the future of the rental sector depends making the process easier for customers.

Stuart Miles, chief revenue officer at Nexus Rental, said: “If the transaction isn’t easy, you quickly lose [the customer].”

Craig McNaughton, corporate director at Lex Autolease, said: “The appetite [from corporate customers] is very much for an online booking process that gives you live data and an almost Amazon-like delivery service.”

McNaughton said that those who book rentals and those who drive the vehicles have differing requirements.

He said that drivers want clean vehicles, delivered on-time and as ordered, with live updates if there are any changes, while those who book value ease of use, personal service and access to a choice of vehicles.

McNaughton said that rental firms should create more tailored booking systems, using artificial intelligence (AI) to find vehicles that are fit for the customer’s use case, optimising recommendations.

Margaret Speirs, group rental director at Arnold Clark, said: “Remember the range of renters. A lot have never rented before, you need too make it as easy as possible.

“People want [the booking process] to be more tech-driven, but we’ll never take away that human element.”

Nathan Holdcroft, managing director at Total Self Drive, said that it is essential to give the customer what they actually asked for, on-time and “with a sense that you care”.

Holdcroft said: “We pride ourselves on a good handover.”

He said that rental firms should aim to automate back-office processes as much as possible, but that front-desk activity should be personable.

When asked about the future oof the rental experience, Holdcroft said: “The biggest change is going to be the vehicles.

“I think the future if going to look very different, the technology in the vehicles is going to look very different.

“Every time we think we’ve got stability or the ability too make predictions, such as with residual values, something happens.

“The good news is, rental companies, we adapt fast.”

Speakers expressed security concerns over the increasing amount of customer data stored in modern vehicles, through phone connections.

Miles said that there is a “real GDPR risk” with stored phone data.

Speirs said: “Resetting everything when the car comes back is all we can do at the moment.

“We need to look at what data is collected that we can’t see.”

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