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The start point for the best source of fleet information |
Starling believes that the services the AA offer haven't changed materially since both the pandemic and semi-conductor issues. He says: "What we are looking to do as a business, is to evolve from a purely breakdown company. To raise the profile of our business, and show that we do a lot more than breakdowns.
"So, I'd like to start by raising our profile on other products. The first product I'd like to highlight is Accident Management. During the pandemic, there were less accidents as you'd imagine, because there were less people on the roads. We have a mature product proposition in the market, which we really want to develop with our leasing companies and partners/providers.
"We're also looking to further develop our Prestige Fleet Servicing brand, that provides service, maintenance and repairs through independent dealer networks. We're doing that in partnership with some of our leasing co-partners and corporates. Again, during the pandemic, numbers did reduce because people were doing less miles and what we want to do is bring that back to the forefront of our proposition.
"Drivetech, is our risk management solution, providing professional consultancy, driver training and risk reduction, therefore improving driver safety. What I really want to do, is link Drivetech to the Accident Management product. I think if we have these embedded together, we'll have a better proposition for customers.
"Then there's our EV product proposition, which I think has changed a lot because of the pandemic and more recent legislation. Electric Vehicles have had a massive impact on our business model and the vehicle parc. Over the last few years, we've developed an EV proposition to help manage charge posts, and we partner with several charge post suppliers - we run their call centre for them. In other words, should a customer phone up and say their charge post isn't working, we manage that process, and, in some cases, we can provide either a reboot to the post or if that doesn't work, we can request an engineer be despatched to repair it.
"We're also looking at mobility solutions. But what mobility means to me, might be different to what it means to you. I think the industry has poorly defined that. When I talk about mobility here and our mobility solution, it's about more than just the immediate recovery and the movement of the vehicle - if we can't repair it. It is about providing two days in a rental vehicle. Sometimes vehicles are off the road a lot longer, so we want to develop a much more robust vehicle off-road proposition - which includes some sort of mobility solution.
"The 'Connected Car' is another area of our business which we're looking at delivering. I have a responsibility for 20 years ahead, and there'll be less breakdowns on UK roads because we'll have all this data. So, we need to start thinking about the fact that if we know a fault is going to happen, can we proactively bring that vehicle in to manage it before an incident happens? We're still in the testing phase, but we do have a robust team in place, with a vast amount of vehicle data already, and we're rapidly developing our product proposition here, too."
Starling acknowledges that because of less supply into the market, their leasing co-partners have been "holding on" to vehicles much longer equalling more breakdowns and work for the AA. He says: "As a result, they go into longer service schedules, and have a higher propensity to breakdown.
"Other opportunities have opened, one of those is the rise in EV take-up. We get our fleet volume primarily through leasing companies and what we're seeing there is a big challenge with the handover of those vehicles.
"We've seen that the quality of the EV handover has not been as good as it could be, so we're having discussions with several leaseco partners, to find out how we can make that handover experience better by using the gravitas of the AA. What I'm looking to do with Drivetech, is to develop a module that covers an EV vehicle handover. Rather than the digital e-learning driving experience, we want to do it specifically for the electric vehicles. We hope that will be a better experience for our leasing partners."
Starling goes on to explain how the AA have changed the way they deal with breakdowns this year. He says: "We've faced significant challenges - especially this last summer. The cost-of-living crisis was just beginning to hit, we had a difficult summer in terms of the heat and Europe has just opened back up. Yet, we took the conscious decision to make sure that we got more roadside instances managed by our own yellow fleet - and not outsource to garage partners. That meant a slight movement in terms of our 'call to arrive' - an important KPI for our customers. What we were keen to measure, was the customer experience with the longer wait.
"We stuck to our guns and once we started to do this, we tried to update our corporate clients with our new messaging. That was quite difficult because corporate customers want you to meet their SLA's. However, we referenced the overall experience and the outcomes of the drivers, and all our data points indicate this was the right strategy. The other good news from that, was that we were getting better customer outcomes and scores - which is the true measure of success in my opinion.
"We must help manage vehicle fleets and off-road times, because that's the other proxy measurement for businesses. Again, we've worked hard to manage vehicle off-road times to as low amount of time as we can - while giving the right outcome, by making sure the vehicle is repaired properly.
"We're delighted to have won your prestigious award, it's a testament to our patrols, call handlers and support teams that deliver that to our customers at the end of the day."
Starling believes it's the relentless focus on serving the customer, that has helped them to win 'Fleet Supplier of the Year' award at the 2022 Business Car Awards. He says: "There's also a focus on future business as well, as our business model will change and evolve over time.
"I'm the custodian of a brand that's been here for over 115 years, and we want to be here for another 115 years - so we must look to the future. If you think where vehicles are going, connected cars, self-driving vehicles, the proxy measurement is there are going to be less breakdowns and accidents on the roads.
"So as a business, we must evolve as a provider - we're doing this with our work with connected cars, as 95% of our current business is through roadside assistance and recovery. Over time that will reduce to a different percentage when we're doing more pre-emptive work."
In terms of areas for growth for 2023, Starling has identified three that the AA are focusing on. He says: "Three products we're focusing on are Mobility, Connected Car, and EV product evolution.
"For Mobility we want to provide greater service to end customers and leaseco-partners. The connected car will be a 2024 volume product, as in 2023, I believe we will be testing to see how we can use that data in a pre-emptive way and drive value for our customers. I think with EV handover and development I've already mentioned, in terms of scalability will be 2024. In terms of mobility, we will be scaling that next year. They're all equally important, but in terms of their delivery to end customers, they will differ."
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