Renting vehicles is the start
Sarah Williams is a National Account Manager in Enterprise Flex-E-Rent, advising businesses on how to make their fleets future fit.
She joined the company in 2004 as a Management Trainee and spent three years working as a branch manager, and then 10 years working in both local new business sales and account management roles, before taking up her current position.
During that time, Sarah had a daughter who is now eight years old.
“I work part time which helps me juggle work and parenting"
“I work part time which helps me juggle work and parenting,” she explained. “I focus on a small portfolio of customers. Each one is a fascinating business with unique needs.”
From her role in commercial vehicles, Sarah has an overview of everything her customers do across all areas of transport, mobility, and travel.
“It’s important to get a picture of how they are using mobility today and where we can work together to do it better in the future,” she told us.
“It’s all in the detail, which is what makes it so interesting. How do you make repairs more efficient? How do you improve older legacy fleets? How do you monitor change? It’s exciting to work at the customer’s pace to find a solution that works for them.”
So, it’s about more than renting vehicles? Sarah laughs.
“Because we rent so many different types of vehicles, we can be completely credible when we talk about mobility. I talk to customers about travel hot spots, public transport, driving efficiencies in delivering goods. It’s exciting.”
“It’s exciting to work at the customer’s pace to find a solution that works for them”
Another aspect is teamwork and this feeds into a better work/life balance.
“It’s a real team effort where my role is the interface with the customer to get to the heart of their needs,” Sarah says.
Behind the scenes, a ‘team’ of Enterprise specialists from sales, central support teams, maintenance and other experts in areas such as electric vehicles and fleet management come together to design the solution.
“We enjoy solving problems, providing the vehicles and then using all our knowledge and resources to make a customer’s business stronger. We know we can deliver a better, cleaner fleet solution if we listen to what our customers are looking to achieve. I get very excited when the numbers show that change is happening.”
The change in working patterns since the pandemic has been a major factor in changing Sarah’s working life.
“Everything needs to be looked fresh,” Sarah said. “Lots of jobs haven’t changed, but lots of people may now be home based. Many may not have a car anymore – or they may want to use a different form of transport. There is enormous potential for doing things better.”
“I focus on a small portfolio of customers. Each one is a fascinating business with unique needs””
Many companies are looking at how to work smart and get the most value from hybrid working patterns.
“Putting in a car club can have enormous impact,” Sarah tells us. “But we need to talk to the right people and demonstrate the benefits. You can’t make any assumptions.”
“How do customers move into electric? We need to understand where people are working, where there are chargers, how we can build charging into the employee working day.”
Did Sarah imagine how her role would evolve when she first joined Enterprise nearly 19 years ago as a management trainee, serving customers in a branch and preparing vehicles?
“Absolutely not! The business has changed so much,” she said. “Customer conversations now spin-off conversation in a completely new direction. Or one of our branch managers will mention something they spotted when they’re delivering a vehicle, and that will spark something new. There’ll be a new problem to address, another incremental touch point where we will need to bring in a fresh idea.”
If you are interested in a career with Enterprise, please visit our recruitment website at careers.enterprise.co.uk
