Grow your sales as an AR: let Fleet Alliance manage compliance in a complex market

THE mood among leasing brokers and BVRLA members ranks higher than the trend among members of the CBI, attendees to the recent BVRLA Leasing Broker Conference heard.

There’s a good reason for this.

The level of broker sales may have dropped by 20,000 from last year’s 400,000 fleet but sales are now at pre-Covid levels with average lead times down to four months. Expectations are that 2025 will be a healthy sales year with a focus on expanding sales teams to meet the expected upturn in demand.

While personal leasing continues to be impacted by the continuing pressures on the cost of living – PCH is down 11.5% compared with the same period in 2023 – the Business Contract Hire (BCH) market is growing its share, now accounting for 55% of new car contracts and 79% of new van contracts.

That’s certainly something that Neil Robins (above) has noticed, a Fleet Alliance Appointed Representative.

Neil says that he’s finally seeing people coming back to market and reinvesting in fleet, having held onto vehicles for too long.

“Up until now I’ve been helping them with extensions or providing short term hire as a stop gap, but this year I’ve had some big fleet batch deals,” he says.

Much of this upturn in BCH activity is thanks to the tax incentives for company car drivers to move into zero emission or ultra-low emission vehicles to benefit from generous tax breaks. According to the latest BVRLA data, the leasing broker car fleet is outperforming the ZEV mandate; battery electric vehicles make up 27% of the BVRLA broker car fleet.

Fleet Alliance salary sacrifice programme is useful tool for ARs

Salary sacrifice is also playing its part in this story of electric broker sales of EVs, for those brokers that have an established salary sacrifice offering.

BVRLA data for its total fleet showed salary sacrifice advancing 47% year on year in its last Leasing Survey, with many brokers saying they are seeing uptake that surpasses those figures.

Andy Riley (above) joined Fleet Alliance as an Appointed Representative just over five years ago following a career in corporate vehicle finance.

He says he has seen the whole range of issues that has affected the sector from WLTP and Covid onwards, but is now very much involved in the massive transition to electric vehicles, where salary sacrifice is playing a significant role, he says.

“I have a Linkedin campaign going which is doing well,” says Andy. “My latest success is with a good sized client of some 40 employees. Currently we’re going through policy implementation so I’m preparing a comms pack for them so it’s ready once it goes live. Fleet Alliance has a comprehensive salary sacrifice offering and it’s gaining real traction.”

So far so good with BCH and salary sacrifice. But against this positive backdrop is the increasing amount of compliance required by the FCA for brokers to sell. The FCA’s Consumer Duty sets high standards of consumer protection across financial services and requires firms to put the needs of their customers first. And expects this to be continuously checked and improved depending on the current financial and economic situations.

“We’re looking for effective communications to understand customer vulnerabilities,” the FCA’s Costas Pittas told delegates at the BVRLA Leasing Broker Conference recently.

“This is where Consumer Duty comes into play. Do your staff have the right sort of empathy to guide customers through difficult conversations? If mistakes are made it’s important to have the data trail to show where the issues were.

“We expect firms to be asking how they interact with customers in every aspect. For example, do your systems deliver effective outcomes? Are you testing whether controls are effective and making adjustments as necessary?”

It’s certainly making life much more complex for leasing brokers as they juggle the demands of sales against Consumer Duty requirements, cashflow against growth, and greater administration requirements against increased volume.

Carry on broking; let Fleet Alliance do the compliance

But there is a viable alternative to keeping all the plates spinning: an alternative that allows you to continue as a broker but let someone do the heavy lifting on compliance and administration.

“Working with Fleet Alliance, our Appointed Representatives are enabled to focus on sales and customer engagement, while our head office team works to manage compliance and the auditing.”

Laura Muir, Head of Appointed Representatives and Partner at Fleet Alliance. Tweet

Laura continues: “It really does enable our ARs to operate with a greater focus on the consultative side of their business, unconstrained by much of the administrative issues that are part and parcel of a brokerage.”

It’s certainly helped Andy Riley who says in his top three reasons to become a Fleet Alliance AR:

“The support I receive from compliance in a highly regulated environment – it’s much easier to let Fleet Alliance do it than set up your own brokerage and do-it-yourself,” he says.

Having done his due diligence on becoming a Fleet Alliance AR, Andy adds:

“I wanted the ability to deal with a small business that has one to five vehicles and all they want is a competitive price, as well as the bigger fleets where you are a trusted partner and I can embed Fleet Alliance’s e-Fleet software, the vehicle rental offering and all the ancillary services that Fleet Alliance provides. It is all backed by a strong marketing team and brand so I have a great conversation to offer across a range of business sizes.”

Martin Britton (above) agrees:

“I have tried to do it on my own before but the big thing for me is the access to funders and the support of a big company,” he explains.

“It’s also much more complex than ever before to be compliant – but all of that is handled by head office, which is a big advantage.”.

With Fleet Alliance, ARs get access to a panel of nine funders, greater buying power and a suite of fleet management tools, including e-Fleet, which offers companies visibility across their fleet along with legacy vehicles.

As well as this, there’s the Fleet Alliance EV salary sacrifice scheme, which helps take advantage of the boom in salary sacrifice sales.

Neil Robins says he’s at the early stages of implementing salary sacrifice but he can see the advantages.

“I’ve just got into two businesses and delivered the first salary sacrifice deal. It seems to me that there’s a lot of setup work but if you get into a big company with a large employment base then the sales will come. The portal and ease of choice makes it so simple for the customer. So once you’ve done one vehicle I think more will come.”

Neil Robins, Appointed Representative, Fleet Alliance Tweet

Martin Britton agrees: “Salary sacrifice is quite a complex thing. Some companies may roll it out and it appears to be easy, but to get the best for the client requires a lot of detail. Sometimes you find that clients are impatient – they want to jump to the end before they’ve gone through all the set up steps. But you need all those steps – such as do they want insurance included – so the system can quote accurately.”

Martin says that he receives leads from head office and to date has 12 companies involved. “The portal is really important. Clients have access to it with all the EVs available so they can get a quotation on the car they fancy really easily.”

So far Martin says he’s already started delivering customer cars through the salary sacrifice scheme and expects continued success from it in the future. “It’s a great way for an employee to drive an electric car,” he adds.

So is being a Fleet Alliance AR for you?

Offering the opportunity to offload the ballast of compliance and administration, becoming a Fleet Alliance offers the opportunity for both established brokers and individuals to continue in the business and focus on the sales and consultancy side of the business.

“The opportunities are many,” says Laura Muir. “We provide you with all the tools – from our e-Fleet software and marketing support to a successful salary sacrifice scheme to progress your business but without the burden of compliance and administration. I would urge anyone who is interested to start a conversation with me. It could be the opportunity for your business to expand in a climate set for growth.”