“It didn’t really matter who delivered your vehicle. You could use a variety of larger companies, you could use Farmer Giles and his tractor, or an independent trade plater. You could simply never rely on delivering that expectation.”
That is Colin Woods, business development director at Pro Driver on fleet vehicle deliveries before the advent of the AFP’s dealer standard. It was introduced in April 2022 as an effort to improve what, at the time, were felt to be variable levels of service, and the guidelines gave everyone from Farmer Giles to dealer group CEOs a clear idea of how best to drop off a company car or van.
The standard was updated in late 2024 with an emphasis on EVs, tech and interpersonal expectations at the point of handover, but the core elements were unchanged: vehicles should be clean, delivery drivers should be able to explain basic functions and the recipient should not be inconvenienced.
Marshall Motor Group, William Morgan Group-North Oxford Garage, Walton Audi, Inchcape, and Sytner Group have signed up to the standard and, as a result, are widely regarded to have fleet vehicle delivery licked. However, the AFP has suggested there is vast room for improvement among some dealers that have not yet adopted it, citing vehicles “delivered dirty or with damage, with limited or even no documentation, and the driver clearly being keen to get away and catch a train as soon as possible”.
The latter point was addressed directly in the latest updates, and chair, Paul Hollick, explains why: “Delivery drivers wanting a lift down to the train station… can make some of our members’ drivers a little bit uncomfortable, and we were keen to make sure there were some standards around that. It’s their responsibility to find their own way back out of that site.
“I think it’s becoming something that’s almost expected now, particularly with some of the vehicle movement providers, but if you’re a work-from-home mum and you’ve got a kid in the house, you can’t do that, and it becomes quite an awkward conversation.”
Another update was the stipulation that EVs are delivered with at least 50% charge. It presents a challenge for dealers and for logistics operators, because charging obviously takes longer and requires more planning than topping up a fuel tank, but that delivery could also be a company car driver’s first experience of an EV, and a nearly empty battery is not ideal.
“[The requirement] was 100% at one point,” says Zoe Tonks, head of corporate sales at Marshall Motor Group, who helped to develop the AFP standard, “what we’d have to do then was transport it, so you’d fully charge and transport every [electric] vehicle, which made the delivery costs significantly more expensive – and then there were the kind of sustainability challenges around delivering a brand-new EV on the back of a transporter.
“I think that through numerous conversations between leasing companies, end-user businesses and dealers, 50% seemed like a sensible amount.”
The third and final update is the delivery driver’s ability to explain the basics of the car, with one eye on the specifics of EVs and the other on general functions.
“There’s a lot more technology,” adds Hollick, “people need a lot more understanding about how to charge a vehicle, what charging cables they’ve been issued with, what they potentially need to do… and also the infotainment systems – how to pair your phone, get Apple CarPlay working or whatever it happens to be. It’s just that extra TLC that people are looking for – and making sure that all the orientation is done properly.”
Most, if not all the big dealer groups subcontract deliveries to specialist logistics operators, and they are the ones at the sharp end of the drop-offs. Woods agrees that delivery drivers should be able to explain a new car’s functions and believes they perform an ambassadorial role for the dealer they represent.
“If it’s been three years, they [a company car driver] might even not be able to start it. Gone are the days where you turn the key – you’ve got to find the button to press. But wouldn’t you like to know that there is a specific app on your phone that you can turn on your heating in your EV before you get in it?”
He also points out that drivers hop in and out of lots of different vehicles and, when you factor in high attrition rates, showroom-level expertise should not be expected.
“I don’t think your average customer necessarily expects a delivery driver to be an expert, but they do have to be able to explain the rudimentary aspects of the car.
“One of our challenges is the fact that we’re employing 70 to 80 drivers doing over 120 jobs a day. We’ve got a core team of people we call accredited, that we know would be comfortable with that product and delivering that level of service, but we can’t necessarily train every single driver to that level. Then, if you’ve got your accredited driver in Swansea and you need him in Aberdeen, that’s a challenge.”
The whole issue highlights the discrepancy between retail and fleet vehicle handovers. The former can be a ceremonious affair (the same may well apply if fleets get their vehicles from a local dealer, which a lot of AFP members reportedly like) but the latter could amount to dropping the key at reception – and that might even be the way some drivers like it.
“If you’re a retail customer, you have a relationship with a particular sales exec,” says Woods, “you go to the showroom, you have your test drive and by the time you pick up the car, you’re known by the receptionist and you get a lovely warm glow.
“But fleet and leasing end users are, to a degree, different. They’re more, ‘oh, it’s time to renew my car’, so they get a company car list, they probably do go and have a test drive, but then they simply order the car… which could come from a completely different dealer group or, indeed, direct from the manufacturer. Then it’ll just turn up on a low-bed truck outside their house. Whether the end users feel it’s a second-tier service, I don’t know, but a lot of them don’t really want [a retail experience], because that’s not the way they go about getting their car.”
The agency model – where vehicles are sold directly by the manufacturer and the dealer is paid a handling fee – also plays a role.
“[Vehicles] aren’t necessarily going through a dealership anymore, says Hollick, “the dealer might have ordered them, but they’re being delivered straight from the manufacturer, or straight out of the docks, so there can be a little bit less PDI going on if you’re not careful.”
Hollick appealed to fleets grappling with poor deliveries to contact the AFP and offered to put the organisation’s clout to work.
“[The standard] gives our members the ability to flag up issues, and we can handle them directly with the dealerships on their behalf. Rather than them as fleet managers needing to go into bat with the dealers and the OEMs, we can handle that ourselves. The power of the collective can be really helpful.
“These standards have been developed in conjunction with dealer groups that are big into fleets, and as they are adopted more and more, I truly believe the leasing companies will be more and more involved – and, potentially, the OEMs as well – and they’ll squeeze the dealers to reach them.”
The long-term test for the standard will be the level of adoption. It represents a solid set of guidelines, and the recent update proves the organisation is listening to its members and moving with the times. But while the odd slip-up is forgivable – especially considering the growing number of hurdles facing logistics companies – there is still work to do, as our ‘how not to deliver a vehicle’ sidebar explains, while the absence of the three biggest dealer groups – Vertu, Lithia and Arnold Clark – is notable. The more receptive retailers become to the standard, the better.
How not to deliver a vehicle
During our video call for this article, Hollick showed us a real-world example of exactly why the AFP’s dealer standard was developed. It was a photograph of the interior of a vehicle recently delivered to a fleet, specifically the cradle for an infotainment screen protruding from the dashboard.
The vehicle was supposed to be fitted with sat-nav and a DAB radio, but there was no infotainment system – just the empty cradle. The manufacturer allegedly told the fleet that the driver needed to download an app and use the data on their phone to power the sat-nav and the radio.
“No communications, no details, dropped-off, and the driver is then effectively told that they need to use their own phone to get the radio to work,” says Hollick, “not a great dealer handover, especially when the spec sheet stated that the vehicle had DAB radio.”
