Award Winner: Best Small Leasing Broker 2021 – UK Carline Vehicle Leasing
We might be small, but we are mighty! World domination here we come 🙂
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A full, rounded business is what impressed the judges in the Leasing Broker Federation’s Small Leasing Broker category and UK Carline Vehicle Leasing has a dedicated In Life department and dedicated inlife@ukcarline.com email address where all in life contract customers can contact and have an immediate response from their manager Jon Ormerod.
He manages all enquiries for Service and MOT queries, mileage amendments, extension quotes and early termination as well as answering any questions the customer may have about their vehicle or contract.
Ormerod was recruited from his role in the service department at BMW and he has a wealth of experience in dealing with customers direct.
Carline’s plan is to expand this department to also deal with customer renewals. Every customer receives a call after delivery of their new vehicle to make sure they are happy and to deal with any queries they may have.
As well as the hands on approach to in life, Carline also has a series of automated touch points set up, designed in house and set at various contract milestones through a QV Systems CRM system.
This includes Email and SMS direct to the individual customers or to the relationship contact like a fleet manager or business owner.
Outside of providing a vehicle, UK Carline has diversified its products and offerings to customers over the past 18 months and now offers:
- Personal and Business Contract Hire with each customer having a dedicated account manager.
- Dedicated Customer Support Team which manages the customer journey once an order has been placed.
- Dedicated In Life department handling all enquiries and queries as per previous paragraph.
- Dedicated Commercial Department with account managers specialising in commercial vehicles, specialised conversions and trailers.
- Short Term and Flexi Rent Department offering contracts from 3 months onwards.
- URG United Rental Franchisee offering daily and weekly car and van hire.
- Courtesy Car Department with three dedicated account managers and two dedicated customer support dealing with Courtesy Car supply and management into the accident repair market.
- Asset Finance Division offering finance for anything from commercial vehicles, IT, Office Equipment, Ramps and diagnostic equipment to Invoice discounting through a panel of over 20 funders.
- Used car and part exchange valuations in house.
- Salary Sacrifice and dedicated affinity portals for our corporate customers and company opt out drivers.
- Keyworker division focusing on in stock vehicles for key workers and NHS.
- Manufacturer backed affinity management programs.
- EV Customer portal so customers can order their home or business charge points via a dedicated portal.
- Access to Solar Panel distributors and quotations for customers to have solar panels fitted to charge their home or business EV charge points
UK Carline has not, as yet launched a customer portal although this is scheduled to go live in early 2022. All customers are sent to the specific portal relevant to their finance company contract, i.e. Lex Autolease and LeasePlan have a dedicated portal where customers can manage all in life with their fleet.
UK Carline head office in Preston, Lancashire
For its staff, the business has a full new starter induction programme and ongoing continuous professional development for team members.
Every new starter receives a training induction booklet for their specific role and can work through the booklet with a coach to become fully trained for their new role.
The booklet includes statutory training (for example data protection), compliance, health and safety, and IT, as well as specific training for their role. We also include a wellbeing section for the new member of staff which includes what to do if they absent from work due to sickness, contact numbers for their team manager and the other members of the management team along with an A-to-Z guide for the UK Carline Employee.
This covers a range of topics from annual leave to working hours. New starters can find basic information about the day to day running of the office and where to find the company policies and staff handbook.
There is a UK Carline Training policy which details the training available for existing employees and the company is committed to ensuring that all staff have access to learning, development and training opportunities which enable them to be suitably knowledgeable and skilled to carry out their role within the company and to develop their talents in ways that fit with the company’s development to meet strategic objectives.
UK Carline aims to ensure that each member of staff:
- Understands their individual job role.
- Is trained appropriately to enable them to achieve their work objectives.
The company believes that training and development is a continuous process. There is an expectation that staff will keep up to date with developments within their own area of expertise.
Each member of staff is expected and encouraged to take ownership and responsibility for their own personal development in relation to their work, within the framework of support provided by UK Carline.
This includes analysing their own skills, abilities and potential development needs as well as having a positive and proactive approach to development.
Staff are also encouraged to put forward any training or development courses they would like to be enrolled on.
Every member of staff is given a private health care policy covering for optical, dental, chiropody and therapy treatments. There are also free 24-hour helplines for health and legal advice along with other services like fast track scans from consultant referrals.
The business also has an online wellbeing portal called LOOP. LEARN new skills. OBTAIN information. OFFER advice PERKS for the team. The name was derived from a competition it ran to come up with the best name for its portal.
Through the portal the team have access to: Discounts across hundreds of well-known household brands. An up-to-date company newsfeed where we can announce company news and any up coming vacancies.
Make someone’s day ecards that can be sent to any member of the team for outstanding work or performance and recognition and Instant Rewards where each department head can reward a team member with an instance voucher that can be used against any of the stores within LOOP.
There is also an additional wellbeing centre that is updated everyday with MOVE to get active like training plans and exercise videos on demand. MUNCH showing hundreds of healthy eating ideas and recipes.
MONEY offers advice and financial wellbeing and MIND which is all about mastering mental health.
The company also has a flexible working policy and framework allowing staff members to work from home if required, while if a staff member is returning to work from a period of sickness absence, a return-to-work interview always takes place.
This interview is to check on the wellbeing of the returning staff member. The company has, on many occasions, adjusted for people returning from a period of sickness to ensure that their wellbeing is considered and routinely offer a staged return for people returning from long term absence.
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