#SAMOTY16: Awards for being the best at serving the biggest

Robert Wright – regional after sales manager for the Volkswagen brand; Carla Wentzel – general manager: sales and marketing for the Volkswagen brand; Loshini Pillay – manager: national key accounts for the Volkswagen brand and Stanley Netshituka – manager: national special markets for the Volkswagen brand with SAVRALA awards.

Then you get an award which is based on experience with not a few cars, but tens of thousands. We have said it before, but the SA Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association (SAVRALA) Manufacturer of the Year award, is one worth paying attention to.

The car rental industry has existed for over 100 years and while there might be thousands of rental companies around the world, just three manage 90% of the business, those being Avis/ Budget, Enterprise and Hertz.

Interestingly, Enterprise, the biggest of the lot, is not currently in SA, but Marc Corcoram, outgoing president of Savrala and one of the directors at Avis/Budget SA expects Enterprise to be coming soon to SA.

While vehicles are currently rented out to humans, Corcoram is also expecting major changes to come in the industry.

"In the future the lines will blur between car manufacturers, rental companies and IT companies," he says. That hints of course at the world of car sharing, one where we will allow others to rent our private car, or where we will use an app to arrange a car but we will rent through a third-party application and perhaps have no idea which of the rental fleets the car might belong to.

That is getting into the future, so back to the awards. Interestingly, the rental company is not immune to the issues that many private buyers also deal with. Twice a year 16 rental companies in SA are asked a series of questions by Lightstone and it seems that customer service and parts are big concerns.

Overall satisfaction dropped from a high of 63.5 in 2015 to 58.4 in 2016, comparable with levels in 2013. There has been a clear decline in the level of support in a number of categories and crucially for the industry there has also been a decline in parts availability. Pricing has also gone up and it seems that resale values are a major concern.

These are all issues that the auto industry will need to address but it would appear that while there is some dissatisfaction, in many cases it is because while one manufacturer has not provided the best service, another has increased the level of service expectation. The playing field is perhaps therefore not so level and those falling behind must raise their game to compete. This brings us to who is the best in the eyes of the industry.

The answer, for the seventh year, is Volkswagen. Not only did VW take the overall gold award, but it also took the best value award too. VW is proving to be very tough to beat. However, it might have to watch out because as well as winning the most improved award, Hyundai also jumped into second spot taking the silver honour, ousting Audi. Third place, the bronze award, went to Toyota.

Source: Business Day