Fleet Assist has won a new three-year deal with Pendragon Vehicle Management, which becomes the first customer to use Fleet Assist’s new tool to reduce vehicle downtime.

The new deal further extends a near decade-long business partnership between Fleet Assist and Pendragon Vehicle Management, which operates a fleet of almost 14,000 vehicles delivering a range of vehicle funding and fleet management solutions to organisations throughout the UK.

Fleet Assist provides clients with a nationwide network of more than 7,000 service outlets which undertake service, maintenance and repair work on vehicles supplied to customers across the UK.

Pendragon Vehicle Management use Fleet Assist to provide a service booking facility for its fleet customers thus directing work towards its preferred service network.

Effectively and efficiently managing vehicle downtime utilising sophisticated management information systems is an increasingly important issue for leasing companies and end-user fleets.

To enable contract hire and leasing companies to ensure that their customers incur as little vehicle downtime as possible, Fleet Assist has developed a further version of its Downtime Management Tool.

Downtime Management Lite enables any SMR work scheduled to be completed in a single day automatically flagged up to Fleet Assist by the garage undertaking the job if the timescale will not be met. Fleet Assist’s call centre will then highlight the delay to Pendragon Vehicle Management which in turn will decide what action, if any, to take and liaise with the lessee concerned.

Vincent St Claire, commercial director, Fleet Assist, said: “Fleet Assist has continuously enhanced its market-leading network of service outlets and Pendragon Vehicle Management and its customers have benefited due to the long association between the two organisations.

“Fleet Assist continues to look to advance its range of products and services and our new Downtime Management Tool is another example of the company working to further support customers in delivering an even better service to their own clients.”

Neal Francis, divisional managing director for Pendragon Vehicle Management, said: “We have had a great experience whilst dealing with Fleet Assist and are pleased to extend the long-established partnership.

“Pendragon Vehicle Management is continually looking to provide further service improvements to our customers and our use of the new vehicle downtime management technology is an integral part of the new contract, enabling us to meet client expectations.”

Fleet Assist was launched more than a decade ago and has expanded to the extent that it has business partnerships with a number of the UK’s leading contract hire and leasing companies collectively operating some 700,000 vehicles.

They benefit from a national network of service outlets without the cost and challenges of setting up and managing such an operation themselves as well as a range of other services.

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