Businesses have faced a lot of disruption over the past few years and 2022 has been no different, with companies feeling the impact of a volatile energy market and an uncertain economy. Over this period the decarbonisation of transport has been one priority for fleets, which we’ve been working passionately to help them achieve against this backdrop. At the AA, it is our priority to make sure that our customers have access to the support and information that they need to make informed decisions about how to switch to low carbon fuels when it comes to their business. We run one of the UK’s largest and most complex operational fleets, so we understand first-hand the challenges and difficulties facing today’s fleet managers.
We understand that fleets are essential to many organisations and keeping their vehicles on the road is critical for business. Beyond our roadside assistance, we give fleets valuable insight into how to increase efficiency, stay safe, manage costs, remain compliant with evolving legislation and help prepare them for the future as transport transitions to alternative fuels. To further support businesses with the transition to alternative fuels, we recently launched our latest yellow paper ‘Alternative Fuels: Thriving in a changing landscape’, designed to help drivers survive and thrive on their routes to alternative fuels amidst all the current political and economic change.?
We’re partners with more than 30 trade associations, providing vital breakdown assistance to vehicle operators across a broad range of sectors, including small businesses and utility companies. Working with partners and industry experts gives us a great deal of operational insight that informs the advice and support we can provide to owners and operators of fleets. This year we celebrated 30 years of partnership with Logistics UK.
Some of the key initiatives we’ve put in place as part of our strategy for 2022 includes providing a dedicated charge post customer support service. Our innovative service sees us handle over 14,000 calls a month, helping to keep EV drivers powered up when they experience problems at a charge point. We’ve also launched an industry-first in-field charge post repair service. Our dedicated technicians will be on-hand to attend EV charge point ‘breakdowns’ for customers, to get them safely up and running so they’re in service for drivers. This makes us the UK’s leading provider of services to the nation’s EV infrastructure network.??
As well as introducing a range of electric vehicles into our yellow fleet as part of our ongoing EV transition programme – which we demonstrated in this year’s Great British EV Rally – we recently launched the UK’s first Hydrogen fuel cell recovery vehicle, as hydrogen is being trialled as a future fuel for our fleet. This level of innovation provides us with valuable insight to support van fleets as they evolve.
We lead the debate – where others offer one-way advice to fleets, we bring our customers into the discussion, enabling them to hear first-hand from industry leading experts on the future of the industry, and have their voices heard. We work with almost 10m business customers, including around three fifths of the UK’s top 20 fleets.
The transition to alternative fuels is picking up pace and at the AA we’re making decisions that show our customers that we’re there for them, every step of the way. It’s imperative to us as a business that we have an EV support service which delivers for fleets and the next generation of vehicles over their entire life cycle. Our market-leading offering ranges from EV driver training from our partners Drivetech, to EV servicing which is available at over a third of our SMR garages (and counting) across the UK through Prestige Fleet Servicing, EV insurance, a charge post fix service and more in between.?
We’re committed to supporting our customers with every aspect of the EV driving experience. As we move forward into 2023, we look forward to sharing more of the exciting projects we’re working on that will further cement us as the industry leader in providing the best possible customer experience for the drivers of today and tomorrow.??
For media enquiries, please contact Joel De Gesso at Prova Public Relations on 01926 776 900 or email theaa@provapr.co.uk
