Stephen Polhill and Charlene Turner are in charge of managing Fleet Assist’s new courtesy car programme

Fleet Assist launched its new courtesy car programme to independent service outlets at its biennial open day.

The Cambridgeshire-based company provides contract hire and leasing organisations with a nationwide network of more than 8,000 service outlets to carry out SMR work on customer vehicles.

At the Fleet Assist open day, entitled ‘meet the fleet’, joint managing director Mike Smith explained that both contract hire and leasing companies and their end-user fleet customers increasingly expect service outlets to offer courtesy car provision.

While franchise garages in the Fleet Assist network typically have their own courtesy car arrangements with their respective manufacturer partners, the same is not true for independent service outlets.

The new courtesy car programme gives service outlets access to a full range of new vehicles from city cars to MPVs across a wide range of marques at competitive rates. Vehicles can be acquired on one or two-year operating lease agreements with a range of mileage parameters.

The scheme is being managed by Stephen Polhill, a member of Fleet Assist’s technical team, and Charlene Turner, fleet administrator.

The initiative is part of Fleet Assist’s increasing range of Network Product Services, which sees an array of partners offering services and products at preferential member rates negotiated by Fleet Assist. Other benefits are expected to be added to the range later in 2016.

Mike Smith explained: “We believe our new courtesy car programme will prove to be extremely popular as it is clear that offering the service to independent service outlets is essential to their long term business success.”