The trial involved 18 fleet business partner dealerships and the fleet customers of four major leasing companies, Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, GE Capital Fleet Services, ING Car Lease and Volkswagen Group Leasing, achieving a customer satisfaction rating of over 99%.

Volkswagen Fleet Services now plans to have the system installed and its fleet business partners fully trained in its usage by the end of this month, ready for the delivery of new registration vehicles in September when, with 6,000 vehicles expected to be delivered to fleet leasing customers during the month, almost 2,000 are expected to go through the MoDel process.

MoDel is an online solution which fully automates the new vehicle delivery handover and collection process and which has been developed as a joint venture between Oxford-based online solutions provider, Ebbon-Dacs, and motor accessories supplier, VGroup International. 

It allows customer satisfaction information to be fed back instantly into Ebbon-Dacs’ Leaselink e-procurement platform and dramatically reduces the time taken to record vehicle delivery and handover information, verify the condition of vehicles, collect and analyse customer feedback, as well as speeding up the invoicing and payment process. 

Iker Lazzari (Inset), National Contract Hire and Leasing manager at Volkswagen Fleet Services, who is overseeing the project, said that during the trial a total of 580 new vehicles  had been delivered to fleet customers through  the various Volkswagen fleet business partners taking part  and had been judged a resounding success. 

'We are delighted with how the trial has worked and are now committed to a roll-out across the network nationally. All our fleet business partner dealerships are being invited to attend training sessions at which the configured and securitised handsets will be distributed and we aim to have complete integration across the network. 

'To underline how committed we are to delivering an improved services to the leasing community , we will also be making a contribution to the costs of the project by paying for the airtime and the software while the retailers will cover the cost of the handsets and security,' he added.

A series of review meetings between the various stakeholders to review progress of the trial found that there was unanimous approval for a go-ahead and that any issues were small and were ironed out very quickly.

Feedback from drivers was collected via five customer service questions to rate the overall experience and was also extremely positive, said Lazzari.

'Uptake of MoDel amongst leasing companies is continuing to grow and at Volkswagen we want to be ready to facilitate the needs of our customers so that there is the potential to hand over all of our leasing deliveries this way in 2013.

'Vitally, the system will play an important part in measuring the performance of our fleet business partners as we strive to improve the service levels we provide to our leasing company customers and their drivers,' he added.

Every year, leasing companies deliver up to half a million vehicles to fleet customers via networks of preferred dealers, utilising a variety of methods, usually paper-based, of capturing vital feedback on vehicle condition, handover completion and customer experience.

By automating and standardising this process, MoDel allows CRM processes to be carried out far more quickly and efficiently, including capturing important customer satisfaction information, vehicle condition reporting, delivery confirmation and helping identify and remove errors from the delivery procedure.

'We are delighted that Volkswagen Fleet Services has successfully completed its trial and that the MoDel project has now moved to a full roll-out across the network,' said Robert Pilkington, managing director of the Leaselink International division of Ebbon-Dacs.

'There are huge advantages to be gained around the delivery and collection process through the use of the MoDel system, especially in terms of improving customer service levels.  We are certain that by taking this initiative, Volkswagen Fleet Services will move closer to its objective of being amongst the top five manufacturers in terms of customer service by the end of next year,' he concluded.