Can Your Fleet Get Better Rates Contract Hire Rates?

One would think that if you have a fleet of between thirty and fifty vehicles, that it should be large enough to attract some very keen prices. Surely a car leasing company would be very keen to get its hands on a fleet of that size?

Well it all depends on the size of the contract hire company you are dealing with; the larger companies tend to aim for considerably larger fleets and it is when they are looking after fleets of two hundred and fifty to five hundred cars, or a mix of cars and commercial vehicles that you start to see the highly competitive prices.

It is also when you start to see high levels of service being provided; a fleet of up to fifty cars is considered small by the larger companies, their senior staff tend to be assigned to the large clients. Clients with smaller fleets or just one lease car will often see their point of contact changing quite frequently, as newer account managers come and go.

So how do you achieve very keen prices and high levels of service if you have a fleet of up to fifty cars? The answer is to deal with one of the smaller car leasing companies or a broker. In the case of a contract hire broker, it can be important for a fleet customer to avoid what is know as a bedroom broker; this is usually one man working from home, often quite literally from a bedroom.

The disadvantages are that if they should become ill or go on holiday there is no back up, which is vital for a fleet customer if the business is not to be disrupted. It is also very unlikely that they will have the buying power to get the very keen rates that are available.

Very often this is because they don’t have the finance facilities in place, because finance companies require a broker to be financially secure and to have their own premises, so they have to offer packages by using the services of another broker. They are therefore only as reliable as the broker they are using.

Many of these small brokers are in fact trying to offer a very good service but they can get let down by the larger broker that may have a particular offer at the time. A not untypical scenario is where they are offered a special car leasing rate and the broker that is offering it, withdraws the offer when the source of vehicles starts to run low. This causes a great deal of embarrassment.

It can also be important to be deal with a broker that offers all the related lease car services, such as license checking and fleet management support. This cuts down on a company’s staff involvement with the fleet.

A larger contract hire broker will have access to various finance company rates and the special manufacturer deals that are on the market but will still be small enough to consider a client with thirty to fifty cars, a valuable client. Indeed a client acquiring just one lease car is a valuable client and is, in our view, entitled to have access to the best rates and the highest levels of service.

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