Fleets turning to car clubs for business travel, says Enterprise

Businesses are adding car clubs to travel policies in response to growing demand for business travel as employees return to work, according to Enterprise.

It says that workers now need greater mobility in more disparate hybrid or home working locations, and often on a more ad hoc basis bringing on-street car clubs into scope.

To help service this increasingly regionalised demand, Enterprise has integrated in-branch technology that geolocates vehicles in real time and provides every branch with visibility of both daily rental and car club availability across the fleet.

It means in-branch employees can advise business customers when a car club vehicle is the most suitable choice for a business trip based on their location, especially for last-minute bookings, says Enterprise.

Paul McCorkell, director of business rental UK and Ireland at Enterprise, explained that automated rental through an on-street car club is becoming an important form of vehicle hire, especially for businesses transitioning the workplace to a hybrid working model.

“It means that we can deliver mobility to employees in even more locations and out of hours, through what might have previously been seen as solely a residential solution,” he said.

Businesses using Enterprise’s booking and compliance platform will also be able to ‘default’ certain employees to a local car club vehicle when that is the closest, most convenient and most sustainable option.

The move towards automated rental, says Enterprise, has the potential to reduce delivery, collection and mileage costs for many business renters.

Setting up employees as car club members is also simple, it says. Once a company has decided to offer employees membership to Enterprise Car Club, Enterprise automatically onboards every employee on to the service without any additional administration.

Enterprise has 1,400-plus on-street vehicles, available 24/7 in towns and cities around the UK.

Employees can book personal trips on the Enterprise Car Club app outside working hours. There is no fee for business membership of the programme, and users only pay when they are renting a vehicle.

McCorkell continued: “Rental on demand brings several benefits. It enables customers to access a much wider range and number of cars and vans in their local area. It reduces collection and delivery charges because vehicles are close to where the employee lives or works and lowers their carbon footprint.

“And because many of our car club vehicles are low- or zero-emission plug-in electric vehicles, companies can start to introduce employees to EVs quickly and conveniently, getting them accustomed to what will soon be the future of motoring.”