Ogilvie Fleet’s disposals team picked up the 2013 FN50 customer service team award at a gala dinner attended by more than 850 leading fleet industry figures at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel, London.
The FN50 is an annual report by Fleet News on the UK’s top 50 contract hire and leasing companies that are collectively responsible for managing more than 1.2 million vehicles.
This year it was Ogilvie Fleet’s disposals team of Rose Anne Roy (team leader), Lianne Dick and Lauren Rutherford that won the award for providing customer service excellence to clients.
In 2012 the company’s customer service team was triumphant.
Additionally, daily rental operations manager Ian Bennett, who joined Ogilvie Fleet in October 2012 with a remit to develop the company’s vehicle rental proposition, was highly commended in the 2013 customer service rising star award category.
Following his appointment, profitability of the company’s daily rental operation has more than doubled with further growth anticipated.
Meanwhile, the disposals team is responsible for the entire defleet of Ogilvie Fleet’s end-of-lease company cars and light commercial vehicles - averaging some 250 units a month/3,000 units a year from a fleet of almost 11,000.
Ogilvie Fleet operates a total transparency policy in respect of defleet company car and van damage charges by telling customers what they will be at the outset of the contract based on a standard fixed cost end-of-contract damage recharge cost matrix of prices of parts which clients sign up to in the master hire agreement.
It now has a virtual 100% acceptance rate on frequently contentious end-of-contract charges applied compared with a query/rejection rate of 44% prior to introduction of the matrix.
When a customer returns a vehicle that is charge-free, the Ogilvie Fleet team sends the fleet manager a congratulatory email thanking them and the driver for returning the vehicle in “good clean condition”.
The initiative, introduced by the disposals team in 2013, has won glowing praise from customers and client testimonials were among the many factors that caught the judges’ eye in presenting the FN50 award to Ogilvie Fleet for the second consecutive year.
In announcing Ogilvie Fleet as the winner of this year’s FN50 customer service team award, Stephen Briers, editor of Fleet News, said: “The Ogilvie Fleet disposals team stood out for the judges among a field of very strong entries.
"The team has a professional work ethic while its offering is industry leading with a clear focus on providing outstanding customer service.
"Excellent testimonials from customers underlined the team’s customer service skills and ability to resolve issues quickly and effective. A well-deserved winner.”
Ogilvie Fleet operations director Jim Hannah said: “A leasing company’s operations department can frequently be the bearer of bad news whether that is in respect of maintenance or end-of-contract charges.
"However, we believe that it is also important to communicate good news to customers.
“Customer satisfaction and retention is critical for Ogilvie Fleet. To get the defleet process right on 3,000 vehicles a year is not easy, but our team ensures that vehicles are collected on schedule at a time and location convenient to the customer."
Picture caption: Ogilvie Fleet operations director Jim Hannah (left) receives the customer service team award from Patrick McGillycuddy, head of fleet sales at Skoda UK, which sponsored the 2013 FN50
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