Let’s talk about the current focus at PHH Arval.
Our primary focus at PHH Arval is customer service, which is also my passion. Every day, we want to deliver the highest level of service to our customers – both to drivers and to fleet managers. When they go out and compare our service to other providers in any industry we want them to say: I wish every company would do things like PHH Arval.
One of the things we try to do is benchmark ourselves in terms of how we are doing, and how we are performing. We do that by using outside companies so that we are benchmarked against best in class service companies. A couple of years ago we started taking several hundred of our calls and sending them to an outside provider for evaluation based on 36 different criteria. They then give us a report card that we use to improve our overall service each and every month. Using feedback from their scorecard, we have steadily improved our performance every single quarter – and we have been the recipient of several awards recognizing our customer service.
Over the past few years we have been the recipients of numerous service awards from outside companies, industry organizations as well as clients.
We are also focused on efficiency. We want to be as efficient as we can in helping our drivers in the field, helping the fleet managers and interacting with our partners and suppliers. At the end of the day the supplier is often the one delivering the service to the driver. We need to ensure we are very efficient so that the driver can complete the transaction as quickly as possible.
Third, our focus is on innovation. Several years ago we created the PHH Arval Customer Experience Center. To be honest, I was a little unclear as to what that was going to bring to us, but at PHH Arval we are always asking, what’s next? The things that have been developed in the Customer Experience Center have greatly exceeded my expectations. These folks are coming up with a lot of great ideas on processes we can improve, products we can develop and how those products and processes can be applied to the fleet industry. I am very excited about what they are doing for PHH Arval clients.
Lastly, we are focused on disciplined growth of the business. We have completed a couple of key acquisitions over the past several years that have been very beneficial to us and to our customers. We acquired a company called FirstFleet that does medium-heavy duty truck leasing in Florida. It’s a terrific team and has been a wonderful addition to PHH Arval. And then last year we purchased The Center for Transportation and Safety, which provides behind the wheel training and some safety products that our customers are demanding. The acquisition allows us to provide a whole new set of capabilities to our customers.
What are your company’s solutions to help fleets to sustain their business?
We take a position at PHH Arval that one size does not fit all. We service a multitude of industries, including: energy, telecom, pharma and dozens of others. We have to be able to customize a solution for each sector. Even within a sector we must be able to customize a solution for a particular client. An example is our accident management service, which has evolved over the past eight to 10 years and can tailor an offering to each sector. Some of our clients want to get a vehicle in and out of the shop as quickly as possible because the downtime of that vehicle might be $500 or $1,000 an hour. Other clients may want to negotiate every possible penny and are okay if it takes a few extra days because there may be other cars available in the fleet. So, we have to customize the solutions to meet each one of the customer’s needs.
Additionally, we recently rolled out our new mobile technology capability where we are able to give the drivers access to our call centers through their smartphones and give them data on demand. I think that is one of the big frontiers in the future: being able anticipate what a user’s needs are and give them the right information at the right time.
What do you think keeps PHH Arval in a leadership position?
I think it is our passion to excel and our drive to constantly enhance the way we do business with our customers and to constantly drive new innovation for our customers. Our relentless focus on meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations drives everything we do at PHH. If you look at the history of the fleet industry over the past few decades you would find that most of the new products and innovative changes have come from PHH. There is a tremendous passion across PHH Arval to absolutely be a world class service company. It is what drives me every day and it drives almost every employee.
What are some of the characteristics of a best in class fleet?
I think a couple of things. One is a centralized policy. If you are not enforcing the policy then some of the folks out in the field are going to do whatever they want to do which makes it more difficult to manage and meet expectations.
For example, we have some fleets that when we are registering their vehicle the drivers do exactly what they are supposed to when they are supposed to. Consequently 100% of the vehicles are renewed on time, every time. We have other fleets where drivers don’t do what they are supposed to so we are constantly chasing the drivers and the fleet managers to get required inspections and paperwork completed. It results in the fleet at risk for a portion of those vehicles on the sidelines. I think a centralized policy that is well communicated and enforced across the fleet is critical to running an efficient fleet.
It’s also critical for any FMC to have a good partnership with the fleet manager. The fleet management company must also have a clear understanding of the client’s objectives so they can tailor their service delivery to meet their needs. With a close partnership comes efficient fleet management.
Tell us what your assessment is of the industry. How are things going?
I think the fleet industry somewhat follows the national economy. By and large we go where the Fortune 500 go. We service those industries, and most of our customers and the economy seem to be improving. We see several indicators that would indicate more optimism about the economy. Our new vehicle orders are also up quite a bit this year over 2011 volumes, and 2011 was substantially greater than 2010. That is a very good sign for the industry. The OEMs have done a fantastic job of recovering and continuing to recover. They are focused on some key objectives; product, profitability, fuel efficiency, and global markets – all of which are of interest to our clients as well.
Next, I believe is the proliferation of smartphones in our industry. Certainly it is happening in all industries but in our industry it can have a major negative impact: distracted driving and the associated risk to the drivers. It is a growing concern in the industry because as we develop more capabilities and provide more functionality to drivers it also creates distractions, which could impact their safety and crash rates
Along that line, almost without a doubt every customer is focused on driver safety. As we develop more and more smartphone capabilities it can impact driver safety. I really think distracted driving is something that the industry will wrestle with for the next several years. Across the states there is more and more legislation coming out to limit or eliminate the use of cell phones and smartphones while driving – and I believe there is a lot more to come. At PHH we now offer a product called InMotion that disables cell phones while driving a vehicle.
What excites you about the industry?
I think it is absolutely technology. The in-vehicle technology where a vehicle will be able to tell another vehicle: there is an accident at exit 16 or a log fell off a truck – your might want to take the next exit. There are terrific new safety precautions that being built into vehicles, that will reduce accidents and save lives. Think about the indicator light that is in the side view mirror of many vehicles today. It is a great innovation, and has probably saved me personally several times. When it first came out I thought this is fantastic – what took us so long? It is a really nice technology enhancement that is going to make vehicles safer. There are simply so many technological advances being made today. Of course, all of this has to be balanced with distracted driving. We cannot create an environment in which it makes the driver less safe than he or she is today.
Then you have the availability of data that is far richer than we have ever been able to obtain. In vehicle telematics devices are yielding a mountain of data – as well as more data from suppliers, more data from the manufacturers, more third-party data. The question is: What are we going to do with all that data and how can we use it to help our clients become more efficient and their vehicles become more productive?
BIO
As Chief Operating Officer, Tom Keilty is responsible for operations in the United States and Canada. He joined PHH in 1995 as Manager, Title Services, and his leadership responsibilities grew steadily to include Shift Operations, Fleet Administration, Mailroom Operations, New Vehicle Ordering, and Used Vehicle Operations. He was Vice President in the Customer & Vehicle Services organization prior to his promotion to Senior Vice President. In 2009, he was promoted to Chief Operating Officer. Before joining PHH, he gained more than 12 years of customer service and operations management experience at various organizations, including American Express.