"In a mature market like the UK fleet market, you have to find ways to be better than your competitors,” says David Brennan, managing director of LeasePlan.

His way of seeing off the competition is to encourage LeasePlan’s staff to deliver great service – a strategy called ‘From Good to Great’. Since it was introduced two years ago it has proved a success and earned LeasePlan the 2008 Fleet News Award for ‘best leasing initiative’.

So, what does David define as ‘great’ customer service?

“Well, we had an occasion when a customer became ill at a motor racing event. He was taken to hospital and his car was left at the circuit.

"We arranged for his car to be collected and driven to a safe place, and for his personal things, such as his wallet and phone, to be taken to his hospital bed.

“Good service would have been collecting the car and taking it to a safe place; great service was delivering the driver’s personal things.

"By taking that extra step the client loved us.”

But implementing ‘From Good to Great’ has meant “a huge amount of change”.

“First of all, we stopped measuring customer satisfaction and started measuring customer loyalty, using the TRI*M index,” he explains.

“It’s a global measurement tool that shows us whether customers are going to stay with us long-term.

"We then started looking at factors which would encourage loyalty.

“There were certain things we were doing that we thought added value, but actually the client didn’t value them.”

“Some of the service level agreements we had with our suppliers were beyond what the client wanted.

"Say, the phone had to be answered within three rings.

"The client said it only needed to be answered within five rings.

"So we could take the money we were spending on that and put it elsewhere.”

Customers said that they wanted help being “more strategic” about their fleet.

“Customers said ‘don’t tell us in an account review that we bought 100 cars and 20 were blue ones.

"Come and explain what’s happening to the future of this industry and what we should do to prepare for next year’.”

LeasePlan restructured its sales organisation and put in an account director system so that clients had a senior contact and a manager contact.

“We gave our clients dedicated people that they could call in the office for the day-to-day operational issues.

"So if the account director was on the road or in meetings there was always someone available to resolve issues quickly.”

A popular change was intro-ducing a consulting team which includes a tax expert, an environment expert and a duty-of-care expert, who are available for client meetings.

David found out clients liked this idea at one of LeasePlan’s twice-yearly customer forums.

“The customer forums are a way of sharing our next ideas for the business,” he explains.

“We say to customers ‘we’ve got 10 big things happening next year – before we spend money on these ideas which of the 10 are most important to you?’

“It has helped us change our product planning and the timing of product launches.”

He believes the biggest learning curve of ‘From Good to Great’ has been understanding how to help staff behave differently.

“You have to think carefully about how to capture the hearts and minds of 600 people.”

David’s first step was to hold a staff conference explaining ‘From Good to Great’.

Each department then worked out a plan for the next three to five years and displayed their objectives on a board.

The next step was introducing “change agents” – people who create energy around a topic.

“We also used reference points from outside the industry to get the service culture understood,” says David.

“We asked staff to consider their own shopping habits and why they choose one supplier – Amazon, for instance – over another.”

Staff were also encouraged to share ideas at forums and whenever someone delivered great service a story was posted on the intranet.

Those stories were entered in the LeasePlan ‘Make the Difference’ awards.

“Positive reinforcement is important,” David says. “Every time we win an award, like the Fleet News Award or The Sunday Times Best Company Award, I stand in reception with a microphone and everyone hangs over the balconies and we have a big rah-rah event.”

Overall, the staff response to ‘From Good to Great’ has been positive with 90% satisfaction being recorded.

The strategy has also made the LeasePlan brand stronger and helps attract “new talent”, according to David.

He has been able to show shareholders the strategy is working too.

“We are growing faster than the market.

"The market is growing about 1.8% this year and we are probably growing 5%.

"The fact that clients have re-signed contracts is a vote of confidence, and we’ve signed some major new clients this year. In a difficult economy, business is strong.”

The economic environment will be the focus of David’s company conference this month as he explains to staff how to interpret “From Good to Great” in different market circumstances.

He says the message is: “If the economy goes into a five-year recession, LeasePlan will still be aiming to be ‘great’.”