United Rental Group (URG) own and manage United Rental System, a network of over 550 independent vehicle rental companies operating from over 800 locations across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. With over 130,000 vehicles, United Rental System are the largest vehicle rental network in the UK.
Challenge
United Rental Group receive 200+ fixed penalty charge notices and traffic offences per day that require timely processing. The team of three administrators were struggling to meet the daily demand of processing these notices due to the time-consuming tasks of printing and collating letters, stuffing envelopes, and preparing for the post. The team would achieve less than 80% of their daily goals, building a deficit that would require other teams to step in and assist in completing the task. Further penalties from the issuing authority would be incurred if a response is not received by the imposed deadline.
Solution
URG implemented a cloud-based multi-channel document delivery solution—Quadient Impress Distribute, which empowered employees to send physical mail remotely. This helped eliminate the time and effort to manually process physical mail pieces. Users would simply upload a file through the Impress web portal and track the step-by-step process as Quadient’s certified mail production facility prints, sorts, stuffs, franks, and delivers the mail to the post office.
Results
URG has seen a 40% reduction in costs on postage, printing, and paper, and estimates a 30% improvement in the processing of penalty notices. Staff are saving at least 6 hours per week from not having to manually stuff envelopes and frank the mail, which enables them to focus solely on processing the penalty notices.
Low-value, tedious tasks cause deficits
Since Craig Shaw, United Rental’s Licensee & Fleet Services Specialist, started working at the company 11 years ago, the number of vehicles they have on the road has significantly increased. With that growth, the number of penalty notices has also ballooned. As registered owners of the fleet of rental vehicles, any penalty and traffic offences made by the drivers who rent from the network are sent to URG. Roughly 200 fixed penalty charge notices and traffic offences are received per day.
URG’s operations team dedicates three administrators to processing the notices received from every local authority, police force, and an ever-increasing number of private parking operators in the UK, as each one requires a response by post to the issuing authority with the correct representation of the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offence. “This is a time-consuming enough exercise without the additional menial tasks of printing and collating letters, stuffing envelopes, and preparing for the post,” said Shaw.
“It became apparent that the team—which had already been expanded—were struggling to meet the daily demand of processing the 200+ notices per day. Quite often we would achieve less than 80% of our daily goals, which quickly builds a deficit. Notices have very strict response deadlines, which incur further penalties if not adhered to. So, to tackle the deficit, additional resources would need to be provided by other areas of the business, which led to a wider adverse impact,” said Shaw.
Customer caring brings solution to deficits
URG had already been using Quadient’s suite of intelligent mailing systems—including letter openers, folder inserters, and franking machines—for almost two decades. During one of its regular check-ins, the Quadient customer care team learned of the mailing challenge that URG was facing. “Quadient was able to demonstrate a clear understanding of our needs, identify different areas of our business which could be streamlined, help us understand the cost implications, and was confident in answering any questions we had during the sales process,” said Shaw.
With Quadient’s always-evolving suite of hardware and software solutions, the team knew just the solution to take control of URG’s laborious mailing tasks. Quadient Impress Distribute, a cloud-based multi-channel document delivery solution, empowers employees to send physical (or digital) mail remotely, eliminating the time and effort to manually process physical mail pieces. Users upload a file through the Impress web portal and can view the step-by-step process as Quadient’s certified mail production facility prints, sorts, stuffs, franks, and delivers the mail to the post office.
Implementation of the system was quick, with setup completed within a week and adjustments of templates to meet the mailing criteria completed in another week. “Quadient was fully supportive in advising best practices and providing training to all users. But the tool is self-explanatory, very simple to follow, and the staff use it actively now,” said Shaw.
Employee productivity maximised
As a result of implementing Impress Distribute, URG has seen a 40% reduction in costs on postage, printing, and paper. Impress is able to combine separate documents and print them double-sided on a single sheet of paper where two sheets were previously used. More importantly, URG estimates a 30% improvement in the processing of penalty notices. Staff are saving at least 6 hours per week from not having to manually stuff envelopes and frank the mail, which enable them to focus solely on processing the penalty notices.
“What Impress has allowed us to do is to own the whole process within our department and not need to rely on additional people to help us catch up. And that has been truly appreciated, not just within the team, but by other members throughout the business as well.”
—Craig Shaw, Licensee & Fleet Services Specialist at United Rental Group
Other areas of the company are also turning to Impress for their mailings. While most of URG’s customer communications are sent by e-mail, the marketing and finance teams do utilise Impress to fulfil the few customer requests that come in for physical documents.
Shaw added, “We took a long overdue opportunity to review some of our processes and fix some additional pain points within the business. The initial time invested in reviewing these processes has proved to be invaluable to the team and the prompt to do this was thanks in part to our implementation and collaboration with Quadient.”
"Quadient Impress is one of those wonderful business tools which, with a small initial investment in time and training, simply works without fuss or inconvenience. Our Quadient account manager likes to check in quarterly and it’s always an awkward conversation—I’ve not really anything to say because we don't have any issues with the software, it works every day! So that’s the best compliment I can give him, that it works in the background, and we don't need to worry about it."
—Craig Shaw, Licensee & Fleet Services Specialist at United Rental Group
