The WVL Leasing Difference
The WVL Leasing Difference https://wvl.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-WVL-Leasing-Difference.jpg 1320 600 Anthony https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a9c4089fd91833b9d9ac3cd2423e0fcb?s=96&d=mm&r=gLooking to lease a vehicle but sick of feeling like a statistic for larger business vehicle leasing companies? At Windsor Vehicle Leasing, we work a little differently. Here’s how.
The Personal touch
With a lot of bigger leasing companies, the person you speak to this month might not be the person you speak to in ten months’ time,” says Peter Fletcher. “Just taking two of our account management team for an example, Ryan Davies has been here around 11 years and I’ve been here around 25 years – almost since I was in short trousers!
“That means if you come to Windsor Vehicle Leasing you’re going to deal with the same person. You’re not likely to be passed from one person to another,” he explains.
“We also have a dedicated maintenance department but quite often my customers will phone me to report an issue, then I’ll work with the maintenance team to make sure it gets fixed.
“It’s that personal contact that you just don’t get in the big leasing companies, and it allows us to build long-term relationships. Most of my customers have been with me for years; they tend to stay with us.”
A flexible, common-sense approach
“Another thing we do that’s a little different to other car leasing companies is we don’t write non-maintenance contracts,” says Peter. “The idea of contract hire is that it’s an all-encompassing agreement, where everything should be covered. The only reason other business vehicle leasing companies sell non-maintenance agreements is because it looks cheaper on paper. But it’s not. You can’t maintain a fleet of vehicles as a small business for less than our dedicated maintenance team with all our buying power can.
“That’s not to say it’s one size fits all,” continues Peter. “You go to car leasing companies and they’ll give you a quotation – but you can’t drive a piece of paper. That’s all a quotation is; a piece of paper.
What we’ll do, particularly for those businesses that have more challenges – say they’ve just started up in the UK and don’t have a long enough record to be funded by the big business vehicle leasing brands – is take into account where else they have operations. We’ll think on our feet and look for creative funding solutions to see how we can be secure in funding that customer to give a ‘yes’, rather than just a ‘computer says no.’
“That means we spend time with people,” elaborates Peter. “I had a customer recently where the numbers didn’t look all that promising on paper, so I got in my car and drove an hour and a half to go and see them at their building site and get a better idea of what they’re all about. When I had, I was in a better position to say yes to getting them a Tesla Model Y.”
“A lot of what we do here is about meeting people, not just doing everything over email. Ultimately we’re leasing to people, so we treat them like that rather than as a number or a transaction.”
Creative solutions to vehicle availability challenges
There are current massive vehicle availability issues right across the world,” says Peter, “but with our contacts we’re able to find some pretty creative solutions.
“For instance, I had a customer recently on the south coast whose business is expanding rapidly – which presents some challenges as far as getting vehicles. I drove down for an in-person meeting and told them ‘I get a notification every day of around 20 available vehicles, at least some of which would suit you. But if you take days to come back to me, those vehicles will be gone.’
I was sat with the finance director and fleet manager at the time and was able to say to them ‘We’ll have to develop a working practice. I can get you the vehicles you need, but I’ll need approvals from you within a few hours.’ We’re in a different world at the minute as availability goes, and a big part of the challenge from our perspective is getting our customers to understand how urgently they need to act on things.
“In this instance they needed five vans,” continues Peter. “It’s taken two weeks and the fifth one is just getting to them as I say this – so we’ve been able to establish that working arrangement and get them what they needed, all because we were able to build that relationship quickly.”
Informal contract extensions to suit your needs
“With current vehicle availability being what it is, some of our customers are being put in a position where the new vehicle they want won’t be available until maybe next year, but their contract for their current is coming to an end,” says Peter. “In those situations, we operate like we believe the best car leasing companies should do and we’ll offer to informally extend that contract to cover them until their new vehicle is available.
“It’s very different to the way many of the biggest business vehicle leasing brands work,” explains Peter. I’ve had new customers come to us saying they had to hand their old vehicle back because with current availability their old leasing company could get more for it by selling it. “We won’t do that. We’d rather make sure our customers know we truly do care about their needs.”
“Of course, older cars on the road for longer can mean more maintenance issues. There are occasions where a vehicle isn’t playing ball, but even recently we had one where our maintenance team put a new gearbox in a four-and-a-half year-old vehicle and it’s now as good as gold! If we hadn’t taken that approach, they’d have been a van short, which would have impacted their business enormously.”
Need a leased vehicle in a hurry?
If you’re looking for flexible leasing deals for your business, our experienced team can help. “We’re flexible, inventive and always looking for ways to keep people mobile,” says Peter. “That’s the WVL leasing difference in a nutshell.”
Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you find the ideal leased vehicle for you.
