Turners Auctions 

Situation

Dominant vehicle auction business

Turners Auctions Limited (“Turners”) dominates New Zealand’s auction market, with 16 branches generating an annual turnover of $NZ400 million. The publicly listed company employs more than 300 people, auctioning around 120,000 vehicles every year as well as earning revenue from the disposal of surplus commercial goods. An important component of their vehicle business is the provision of end-of-lease inspection services to fleet leasing companies. Turners conduct an independent assessment of the state of a vehicle that has just finished a leasing period, reporting this back to the leasing company who can then settle the contract with their customer. Since 2003 Turners has used Netresult Mobility’s mobile inspection system AutoCheck to manage their end of lease vehicle inspection process. This enables Turners to provide a service to leasing companies like FleetPartners. Established in 1977, FleetPartners supplies vehicles from passenger cars to heavy commercials to over 60,000 drivers across Australia and New Zealand.

Achieving consistency at speed

Playing a crucial role in the relationship between a leasing company and their customers creates real pressures, says Turners’ Chief Operating Officer Todd Hunter. “We really represent the leasing company in the end-of-lease inspection process, assessing the damage against fair wear and tear policies of each leasing company we service, which actually vary by company. Within these constraints we strive to be as consistent as possible, but still have to make judgement calls.” “This has a lot of impact on leasing company customers, and if we get it wrong there are real issues. We also need to record and process accurate data such as odometer readings to terminate the lease - any mistakes can create problems for the leasing company and hamper their ability to efficiently complete leases and process surplus vehicles.” Independence is what motivated FleetPartners to appoint Turners as their end of lease agents. “It used to be done in-house, but we wanted independence – end of lease is always a sensitive area with customers and an independent service helps with that,” says David Jenkinson, Group Remarketing Manager, FleetPartners. “Having an independent service like Turners just reduces the friction – our sales force can deal with their customers armed with an independent, consistent assessment.” FleetPartners recently conducted a request-for-proposal (RFP) around their end of lease process, to ensure they were achieving best practice. “We looked at other vendors and decided to continue with Turners - what we know from that RFP process is that they are providing a world class service, so there was no need to change.” Fundamental to the service provided to FleetPartners by Turners is Netresult’s AutoCheck mobile inspection software.

Solution

Mobile inspection solution

Netresult’s AutoCheck solution enables vehicle inspectors to use a smartphone or similar handheld device to follow a prescribed inspection process, collating and storing all the information and images required by the leasing company. AutoCheck enables Turners to report completed inspections in a timely manner to the lease company and also audit their own process efficiency. “AutoCheck enables us to make every inspection standard and consistent, which is the most important aspect of this service,” says Mr Hunter. “We are their (the leasing company’s) representative in this process so the key is ensuring consistency of process, which is what the system helps us with. “We put a lot of effort into the consistency and quality of our inspections. Turners has been accredited through IANZ (International Accreditation New Zealand), meaning our process and our inspectors have been investigated and certified.” “To service our customers effectively Turners must be able to follow process, be competent and provide an accurate record. Timeliness is also a real key – customers need a 24-48 hour turnaround – which would be very hard to achieve with a paper system. And the ability to do it all online is very important.” Mr Hunter says they couldn’t get through the thousands of end of lease inspections every year without AutoCheck.

World class service with AutoCheck

Having AutoCheck is one of the key elements supporting Turners’ ability to deliver a world class service to their leasing company customers, says Mr Hunter. “You have to have the automation to get consistent application of the inspections process; we couldn't do it otherwise, especially because there is varying criteria. We can also report back effectively to our lease company clients – giving them lots of information, photos and other objective data.” Netresult’s focus on the vehicle industry has also been important, he adds. “This is a very specialist area, and the leasing business is very important to us, and it is complex so we needed a vendor that really needs to understand it.” “Before AutoCheck there was more disagreement and interruptions over our inspections - that has dropped off. And there are less disruption between the lease company and their customers as a result. “Having the system helped us win new business recently with Toyota Finance – it was based on the quality of our output and the consistency of our inspections. We now have 100% of the large end of the market in New Zealand.” The impact AutoCheck has on the leasing company experience is also clear. “We couldn’t be happier with the service we get from Turners,” says Mr Jenkinson of leasing company FleetPartners. “Consistency is the most important outcome for us. Often inspections comes down to the interpretation of inspector, but Turners are able to deliver very consistent outcomes. I know they have a system behind this.” Mr Jenkinson says the AutoCheck-generated reports they receive from Turners are exceptional. “Speed is also important and that is excellent – the turnaround is fast, we have the car in the system it gets actioned as soon as possible. The customer wants it turned around and invoiced in 48 hours, the Turners service supports that.”

About Us

Netresult Mobility provides mobile computing solutions to help all parts of the vehicle supply chain, from wholesale financers right through to consumers, improve the speed and quality of their decisions about vehicles. Our mobile solutions are aimed at addressing inefficiencies and providing you with competitive advantage. We adopt a low risk approach to developing and providing solutions by only using proven technology and ‘best practice’ project management methodologies.

PROJECT DETAILS

Category: Case Studies

Client name: Turners Auctions

Business Issues: Efficiency delivering consistent end-of-lease vehicle inspections

Solution: Netresult's AutoCheck mobile inspection software

Outcome: Service acknowledged by customers as world class