The AA’s new business services director, James Starling, has a lot on his ‘to do’ list. And the former international athlete is looking to hit the ground running, as outlined to John Challen.

James Starling, director of business services, AA

Fleet is my past and I want it to be more of the AA’s future

Before moving to the AA I was chief commercial officer at SMH Fleet, which was recently acquired by Kazoo. We were involved in fleet logistics, repairs and repatriation work, partnering with big leasing companies and OEMs. Prior to that I spent a lot of time at Lex Autolease, heading up account management and then new business. In another previous role I was sales and marketing director at Toyota Financial Services UK and also spent time at LeasePlan as head of consulting.

There was a lot that attracted me to the AA

It’s an iconic brand that really did appeal. The company is at a really interesting stage of its development. In terms of business services I think we need to change our positioning as a supplier, so we are not just known as a breakdown provider. We’ve got to develop our proposition more broadly into the fleet ecosystem. It’s an easy thing to say, but because the AA is synonymous with breakdown, it leaves you exposed to market demands. Beyond the next 10-15 years, you can see that we have driverless car technology and more electric vehicles, so the traditional breakdown model – through business services – is likely to change.

It’s clear we need to act now

We’re looking to develop some of our other products and services and ensure they contribute more to our revenue line. For example, The AA is very conscious of the automotive market and changes to the OEM dealer model (the movement to agency) allows us to be more proactive in our support for OEMs – and dealer partners.

It gives us a chance to get involved with EV support, post-delivery to the driver. A lot of the early adopters knew their vehicles inside out, but that’s not always the case now. For many it’s a work vehicle and therefore specific knowledge about EVs might not be high on the list of priorities. But we can educate drivers through AA Drivetech and are looking at the potential of online EV training when drivers start their journey with electric cars.

Partnering with industry is a big priority for us

We’ve got a number of avenues where we can look to do more work with fleets. Beyond the driver training work, there is also our Prestige proposition. We can offer a service, maintenance and repair product through our network and we’re looking to develop that over the coming months. Specifically, we’ve got a lot of leasing company partners who we are working with. Those companies have also realised they need to do more when it comes to driver training on EVs, so hopefully we will be able to support them.

We’re still committed to breakdown

The core of our business for leasing companies is breakdown recovery because it’s so important for them. When a driver has broken down, we arguably represent those companies, because they have the relationship with the customer. We want to make sure we continue to deliver the SLAs and KPIs that we have in place. Beyond that, we need to give drivers excellent service, but also to make difficult situations as stress-free as possible.