How committed are car retailers to serving and satisfying your needs as a fleet boss? It’s a simple question with a myriad of answers, often dependent on how well your most recent interaction with a dealer went.

Dealers, especially those from the growing pool of supergroups dominating the upper echelons of car retailers, talk a lot about the importance of winning, serving and retaining fleet customers. But even while the best ones do it incredibly well, they can still be let down by a poorly handled job or a member of staff who has not gone the extra mile. While these might be one-off incidents they tend to be the ones that are remembered. Consistently and quality are key ingredients but are often missing.

Dealers know they have to offer a consistently good service all the time, every time. One of the most difficult challenges facing dealers today is winning new customers in the first place, it’s a competitive market with customers willing to travel to get the service they expect.

One group that believes it offers one of the best fleet services around is Marshall Motors. Based in Cambridge and operating as a regional East Anglia group for much of its 100 years, it evolved into a national group just five years ago through a series of acquisitions and has a brand portfolio ranging from Vauxhall to Maserati.

While the business has been built on the recovering retail market, it is also evolving into a major fleet retailer. It also runs the Marshall Leasing.

CEO Daksh Gupta, who has masterminded the group’s spectacular growth since 2008, knows exactly how important fleet customers are and how they should be served at a local level. The group’s fleet business has grown significantly from being a forgotten toe in the water to a major part of its growth strategy. Although he has no illusions about how difficult it is to be a credible fleet player.

‘Local fleet is hugely important for us. Five years ago we had no strategy so we took a decision to enter the market but it doesn’t happen overnight. Generally people don’t like switching suppliers, there has to be a compelling offer and usually that’s around service standards dropping.’

The timing was perfect because at the same time Gupta was growing the business into a scalable retail group through a series of acquisitions. This meant that under-performing dealer businesses were acquired and turned around with new processes put in place with customer care and retention being at the forefront of their new culture.

Gupta provides an interesting insight into why fleet is important, arguing that while its high-volume, low-margin model can dilute dealer margins, it can also generate lucrative aftersales business through service and repair work. He also acknowledges the importance of strong relationships at local levels.

‘Some dealers don’t think fleet is important as it does dilute your sales. But I believe fleet operators are diverting volume to the people that they do business with because it’s an opportunity for them to leverage their position. Bearing in mind around 50% of all vehicles on the road are fleet, if you don’t play in that market then you are cutting yourself out of aftersales business.’

The best dealers serving the fleet market have an even split of retail to company car sales. Gupta acknowledges that his group still has a way to go but believes a 1:1 ratio is achievable and a lot of this will be down to staff training to develop the best possible local relationships. He also acknowledges that a cultural change is often needed within dealerships and is focusing attention on the better integration of the local fleet specialist within sales teams.

‘It comes down to people and management. Where we have really good people we do phenomenally well in fleet.’

The drive towards raising standards is not just coming from dealers. Renault, a brand which went through a miserable experience during the downturn with its product and dealer cull, has emerged slimmer and wiser and has just unveiled an unprecedented quality drive in its UK dealer network under the independent eye of JD Power.

The brand has launched a dealer excellence awards scheme and an online customer service voting scheme both in association with JD Power. It has also kicked off a comprehensive dealer staff training programme. All of this is now underway with the French brand setting itself a five year target to become a top 10 vehicle manufacturer in terms of independently assessed quality by 2017.

While Renault is coming from a low base, after the cull and the poor quality issues which plagued some of its product line-up in recent years, the initiative is laudable and, importantly, with JD Power being the final arbiter it has nowhere to hide. The end result should see the brand re-emerge with a stronger fleet business case than before.