000685 - Hire Station 25/9/08 16:34 Page 1
PROFILE
HIRE STATION
Full of confidence
Robert Aplin talks with Hire Station Managing Director, John Singleton, about the
company’s continued development of both its tool and specialist hire activities.
When you look back at its results in its financial year to March 2003, success that over £30m of Hire Station’s transactional activity now
Hire Station, the tool hire division of specialist equipment hirer, comes through this centre.
Vp plc, was performing poorly. At that point, Hire Station accounted
for 48% of Group revenue, but only 10% of operating profits. According to John Singleton, “we installed a ‘feature net’ system in
Five years the business that allowed for incoming calls to be diverted from
on, in its branches into the call centre and, within three months, our turnover
most recent had grown. Our depots still have the option to answer their own
financial year phones, but, if they don’t within a couple of rings then the call is
to March 08, automatically forwarded to the call centre with the telephone
the company software identifying not only the caller, but also indicating the branch
achieved they are trying to contact.”
turnover of
£57.1m – up Whilst, at first glance, it may seem that Hire Station is taking a set of
27% on the skills away from its branches, John is adamant that “the call centre
07 figures – has, in fact, taken the risk out of our entire strategy. There was an
and recorded overnight improvement in branches’ ability to respond to customers.
Hire Station operates 80 tool hire branches.
a 90% They were able to focus more of their time on ensuring that the right
increase in operating profit to £5.9m. The hirer also invested £12m in quality equipment was despatched and collected from customers in
its fleet, a 43% increase over last year. a timely manner, as well as freeing up more time to manage and
maintain the extensive range of fleet assets under their control.
The management team at Hire Station has quietly gone about the Improvements to administration processes were also experienced,
task of not only expanding its core tool hire operation into an 80 meaning fewer invoice queries, which has been a positive plus for
depot national network, but also developing and expanding a the customer. The call centre can now, with a lot of confidence,
number of specialist activities. These are headed by ESS Safeforce, say ‘yes’ to the customer knowing that we have excellent stock
which now operates 12 outlets and is described as “the No.1 availability and a responsive branch network.”
specialist safety hire, sales and training business in the UK.”
Hire Station has also expanded two additional activities originally Call Centre General Manager, Andy Coyle, says “we have 27 hire
acquired within the last two years. MEP Hire is a mechanical and controllers answering phones. The team comprises a number of
electrical pipefitting activity that now operates from five outlets, as former depot managers and sales people with a wealth of tool hire
does Climate Hire, which is its specialist heating, cooling and experience. Each new member of the team will spend their first 12
environmental activity. months in
our admin
Call centre established
office
Heading the Hire Station operation is Managing Director John learning
Singleton, who joined Vibroplant, the original name for Vp, about our
in December 1998. Having helped to re-organise Vibroplant from a systems.
general plant hirer into a group of specialist hire businesses – hence They then
the name change - John took over the running of Hire Station in spend
January 04. Vibroplant had established a call centre for its plant another 12
operations in the mid-1990s and one of John’s key contributions has months
been the development of Hire Station’s own call centre operation, taking off-
based above its Trafford Park depot in Manchester. Originally trialled hires and it
in the north west of England in 2004, the call centre operation was will be two
then rolled out across the entire company. Such has been its years before Hire Station now sets a stock profile for each branch.
15
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52