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How to provide the best car rental experience to your customers?

12.10.2022 10:54

The car rental market is becoming more competitive and is increasingly digitizing. 25-45 year olds represent 75% of the rental market, forming a huge opportunity for car rentals companies. 

Car rental companies can no longer rely entirely on their local reputation to compete. The manual process of handling bookings, check-in, check out and damage checks on top of incomprehensible contracts, hidden fees and long waiting lines may drive your customers away. Moreover, car rental companies have to juggle between extensive opening hours and increasing staff costs.

To succeed, customer experience must be even more at the core of your business.

 

Learning from other sectors

Banks have been slow to take on the digitization trend for a long time but nowadays who still goes to a bank to make a transfer? 

Customer behaviours in terms of banking services have been changing for a long time already and COVID has accelerated this trend. Innovations such as contactless payments became very popular and the European banking sector has seen an increase of digital users of 23%* since the start of the pandemic. 

Online banking usage is higher among young people but older generations have also understood the advantages and convenience of digital banking. To stay relevant, financial services need to be accessible without any extra effort and banks need to be available for their customers 24h24, 7j/7. 

Some would say that the rental business today is the same as banking 30 years ago. No-one is seriously considering queuing in a bank office to make a wire transfer. Why should it still be the case to rent a car? Ask yourself: how do you want to manage your rental business in the future? 

Increasing the efficiency of the rental process for customers

To hop on the digital trend as a car rental business, you need to build your online presence and simplify the customer experience. 

Offer a multi-channel customer journey

Instead of digitizing your entire business, you can start by offering an alternative digital journey, next to your existing rental experience. Your customers can then choose between renting at the counter or via a digital channel. 

Simplify your processes

There are a lot of steps your customer can complete digitally that does not require your staff intervention:

  • Checking vehicles availability, rates and terms & conditions can be done via a website and an App. Same for bookings
  • Documents can be uploaded and verified in advance via an AI technology
  • Damage checks can be done via an App with a documented report including pictures for 100% safety
  • With a digital key, customers can unlock/lock the vehicles themselves, which mean you are no longer bound to your opening hours


So are you ready to say goodbye to paperwork, waiting lines at the counter and lengthy processes?

Yes, but is it safe for my business? 

With less customer interaction, you still need to know who is behind the wheel. 

A technology like MyMove employs the same technology banks use, to onboard your customers and compare their official documents with a live selfie. This solution (that combines AI with human checks) allows a fast and secure verification process. 

Get in touch with us to see how we can help your car rental business to put the customer experience at the core of your success. 

*McKinsey Digital (2020), Europe’s digital migration during COVID-19: Getting past the broad trends and averages, July.

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