Motorhome Owner Rental v Depot Rental

The MotorHolme fleet of vans: Motorhome Owner Rental v Depot Rental. Another Motorholme TV video.

Vanessa: Welcome to Motorholme TV and you’re joining us for another interview from Motorholme headquarters in Cambridge with business founder, Andrew Hughes. And Andrew we’re going to talk a little bit about the history of the company and your fleet. Motorholme has been going for ten years now hasn’t it and you’re the market leader in terms of motorhome rental so that’s been building up over the last ten years.

Andrew: Yes it’s funny to think that we only started with one motorhome back in the good old days and quickly grew our fleet to ten and thereafter we hit on the idea of renting other people’s motorhomes and that really snowballed from the 10 fleet to 60, 120, and now somewhere around 500 vehicles on what we would call our owner fleet and at the same time our own what we would call our depot fleet is around 100 vehicles. So yeah in total probably a 600 vehicle hire fleet.

Vanessa: Indeed and as you mentioned there’s kind of two different offerings, there’s the vehicles under your control that are at the depots and then there’s the owner fleet of some 500 vehicles. How do you control the quality across the fleet?

Andrew: It’s a lot easier to control the quality at our depots because A) we only operate with brand new vehicles and at the end of each season we effectively move them on and no longer have them at the depot. The maximum age I guess at our depot would be six months old and because they’re standard and all the same vehicle – well they’re not all the same vehicles, but there are all three different types of models: small, medium, and large, it’s a lot easier for us to control that. Obviously we have very stringent procedures and checklists for each and every one of our vehicles that go out from the depot.

Vanessa: And talking about the owner fleet, how do you control the quality of the hirer’s experience for those vehicles?

Andrew: We generally find that owners are very house proud of their vehicles and obviously because they’re only dealing with the one they have a lot more time to attend to issues that they would get if you were trying to get say six out in one day. You obviously have a limited amount of time so because they’ve got longer they do generally get a very well presented vehicle, and the owner can give them a lot of insider tips to getting the best from that particular motorhome because obviously they know it so well. The quality of the experience overall is very high and as a business though we do make sure that every hirer is given an opportunity to give us what we call a feedback at the end of the hire and they grade the quality, the cleanliness, the handover, the presentation of the vehicle, and they’re able to do that on each and every hire booking. Obviously, when we receive that back from the hirer we take the necessary steps to control the owner’s as we see fit.

Vanessa: So if were to go and hire a motorhome is it really dependent on where I want to pick the vehicle up from as to whether I would get an owner motorhome or one from your depot?

Andrew: Well let me help you with that Vanessa. Basically you have a choice, you can book online for one of our depots and you don’t need to speak to anybody, you know you’ll be getting the vehicle, but you have to pick it up from one of our depots. Now that works for a lot of people because our depots are strategically placed around the country. You can leave your car there for the duration and then obviously go on with your holiday. Now depending on how you want to play it, you can drive to the depot that’s close to your holiday or you can pick it up close to where you live and then go on your holiday. With the owner vehicles because they are literally scattered all over the country, you can either pick one up near to where you live or round the corner in some instances or you can pick it up near where your holiday starts effectively. Say you lived in London and you wanted to go to the Lake District, you could pick one up either around London or drive to the Lake District and pick one up there. That’s obviously a faster way to do things and it seems down to personal choice.

Vanessa: Okay so the staff here at headquarters I’m assuming that they’ve built up relationships with owners over the years that they’ve been renting their vehicles out through you. Does that mean the staff here can help people find the ideal vehicle for their particular needs?

Andrew: That’s right, well obviously there are many different configurations of vehicles and some people want a rear lounge for socialising, some people need bunk beds, and it’s not possible for us at our depots to hold every different configuration like I said, but we do have within the fleet just about everything you can think of from large American RVs down to small very cost 2 berth campers. So yes we can obviously find whatever you like within our 500 owner fleet, but it is different as I say the experience to some extent to what you get from the depot.

We do provide a video series on getting the most out of every one of our vehicles. We do a handover video, which shows you how to operate it safely and how to secure everything in the vehicle properly and get the most from it. And you’re right, we are providing a video series in the future about planning your route and how best to enjoy a motorhome holiday.

Vanessa: And if somebody has a problem when they’re on holiday is it simply a case of picking up the phone to you or the owner?

Andrew: Again yes we operate a 24 hour emergency phone line service and obviously we have experienced people who can talk you through getting the fridge started and breaking down if that happens, you know all those kinds of good things, but as you say the owners are the best people to speak to if it is provided by the owner because usually it’s a little quirk or something that they’ve overlooked. You know nine times out ten they can solve it over the phone in a couple of minutes.
Vanessa: Fantastic. So it sounds to me as if you’ve brought a lot of your own personal experience and passion for motorhoming to the business that you know what the issues are and you’ve thought ahead to resolve those.

Andrew: Yeah absolutely as I say I did start with one vehicle and ran the business for the first four years single handed so I do know my way around the motorhome to say the least.

If you are thinking about incorporating motorhome owner rental or motorhome depot rental into your motorhome business, it might be useful to call 0800 612 8719 and talk to Motorholme about their business propositions.