Alpharetta Operations Updates
Compliance
On the Registration front, we completed 89.6% of the planned renewals before expiration in October. The largest opportunity for us here is completing the vehicle requirements in a timely manner to enable Wheels to complete the renewal before expiration. In October, 19% of the renewals were linked to a needed vehicle requirement. Our goal is to have 75% received 45 days before expiration, however we received 32% from drivers in October. Wheels continues to send communications to the drivers with missing requirements; however, this remains our largest opportunity to drive our completion percentage higher. On average, we receive the state requirements from drivers 56 days before expiration and 11% go to Final Letter Document not received. The average days to completed before expiration is 38 days.
Acquisitions
Looking at Acquisitions, we continue to focus on timely vehicle deliveries and saw a decline in vehicles waiting to be delivered at dealerships. The total number of vehicles at dealerships declined 6.7% in October. Our Delivery Status team is focused on the oldest outliers (defined by vehicles at dealers > 25 days) and these declined 40% this month. Our open order backlog increased as total open order backlog increased 5% for Wheels.
Accidents
Collision repair volumes are returning to pre-pandemic levels and repair facilities continue to face issues they saw in the pandemic world which include:
- Parts and material shortages from supply chain disruptions
- Staffing challenges including finding techs and increased wages
- New training and tooling needed to repair increasingly complex vehicles
- Ongoing consolidation of repair facilities
The collision repair team is often seeing new work being scheduled 2 weeks or more into the future. The collision repair team prioritizes any non-drivable vehicles by getting them to a network shop that can start the estimate and repair process as soon as possible. Many times, we are reaching out to multiple shops during this difficult time to locate a network shop that can manage the repairs immediately and reduce the days the vehicle is down. Utilizing this process and the knowledge our ICAR trained repair specialists, Wheels Collision related rentals days are 2 days better than the industry average.
Maintenance
We realize the importance of keeping your vehicles on the road and our Maintenance team works to achieve exactly that. For October, our Maintenance teams answered a total of 117,748 calls and achieved an average speed to answer of 69 seconds. We continue to monitor call patterns and weather-related incidents and staff to the needs of our drivers and repair facilities.
Driver Care
Our Alpharetta Driver Call Center has done it again, by achieving a First Contact Resolution rate of just over 86%. This is the 7th consecutive month of exceeding resolution goal. Resolving driver requests accurately, effectively, and quickly is a priority for this team. Wait times did increase slightly in October with an average speed of answer of 52 seconds. This was driven by higher call volume related to Personal Mileage Reporting both monthly and End of year for some clients. Driver Care is focused on improved accessibility while ensuring that they can assist and support all driver requests as they are presented.
With the year-end upon us, communications to drivers regarding end of year PMR is very important. Reminders to drivers to review and enter any missing mileage for the year. Additionally, notifying drivers of PMR editing lock dates so that they do not miss the opportunity to update any missing entries.
Did you know that Drivers can access and enter their Personal Mileage via the ePlan Driver portal or through the MyLP-MyLeasePlan mobile app? The App can also assist Drivers with Fuel PINs, Registration Renewal status, Fleet Policy information. There is also the in-App Service Locator to find the nearest Service Center so they can schedule their vehicle maintenance.
Survey Feedback
Our number one priority remains to improve the way that we manage you and your drivers’ requests – aiming to deliver better response times and more quality resolutions to your inquiries. Earlier this year, we initiated a survey sent on closed requests, to ensure that you and your drivers are satisfied with the way your request was handled:
Each month the feedback and results have been reviewed with department leaders throughout the company to provide insight and opportunities on how we can improve.
Q4 has shown improvement with a 6% increase in overall satisfaction compared to Q3. Most notably is the increase in satisfaction with resolution of request – up 10% over Q3.
Another benefit we have seen since implementing this survey, is the real time follow up with you and your drivers if dissatisfaction is expressed and ensuring we provide further resolution on requests as needed.
Your feedback through these surveys has provided us with the visibility and insight we need to continue to improve the level of service we provide. Thank you for your participation!