A First-Class Service to Six Million Customers

npower is a leading energy company supplying millions of homes with gas and electricity every day. As one of the UK’s top energy suppliers, npower offers a range of essential home and business services to around six million customers across the UK and is a recognised household name. npower was created in October 1999 and launched in April 2000. It combines the former electricity and gas supply businesses of MEB, Calortex, MEB Powerline, National Power Energy Direct and Independent Energy, Yorkshire Electricity and Northern Electric and Gas. npower is the retail arm of RWE npower, a leading integrated UK energy company, which is part of the RWE Group.

MeterPlus is the metering business for npower. Although MeterPlus is a division of npower, it is independently branded in order to provide metering services to not only npower customers, but customers of other suppliers of electricity and gas such as British Gas, Powergen and Scottish Power. As the name implies, MeterPlus provides metering-type activities to customers, for example, the installation of meters, meter removal and meter reading - either before or after a bill or for those customers who are moving home. MeterPlus employees travel across a broad geographic area to deliver these services, throughout the North of England.

Energising MeterPlus by providing

a reliable and safe management

service

In May 2002, npower was acquired by the RWE Group. The RWE Group also owns Thames Water. At the time of the acquisition there were a number of service providers, delivering a whole range of activities to different parts of each of the respective businesses. For example, there were two fleet management specialists providing independent services to both MeterPlus and Thames Water. Following the acquisition, the RWE Group decided to rationalise to one supplier to manage its fleet and Fleet Management specialists, Venson, was awarded the business. Venson’s specialist knowledge of running a service-oriented fleet, having worked with Thames Water for a number of years, combined with a highly competitive bid, gave MeterPlus the confidence to award the contract.

C A S E S T U D Y

C A S E S T U D Y

Stuart Lee, Business Support Manager at MeterPlus comments:

“Venson had been working with Thames Water and Lex Transfleet was working with MeterPlus. At the time Venson proposed a very cost effective and comprehensive service and the decision was taken to hire Venson. Fleet management and contract hire is not an area of core expertise for us, whereas we felt that Venson was a real specialist, with a good working knowledge of the motor trade. We knew that we needed expert help in order to make important transport decisions, and Venson demonstrated this.”

MeterPlus has a fleet of 950 vehicles. This fleet comprises of typically small vehicles, such as Fiesta and Citroen vans. These vehicles support two types of MeterPlus employees; those who read the meters and those who install, remove or fix meter problems. The latter need to carry meter equipment and tools and generally drive the larger Citroen vans. Owing to the fact that MeterPlus provides services to both npower and non-npower customers, the fleet tends to be branded as MeterPlus, however there are a few vehicles that carry the npower logo.

Venson is delivering two types of services to MeterPlus in order to maintain this fleet. The first service is contract hire, whereby MeterPlus lease vehicles over a 3-year period, after which time the vehicle is replaced.Currently Venson leases 750 of the 950-strong fleet to MeterPlus, the other 200 vehicles are still privately owned by the organisation or leased from previous suppliers.In addition Venson also provides a comprehensive fleet management service for all 950 vehicles.

Working with Specialists to Achieve Good Value

Venson started working with MeterPlus in December 2004, taking over from Lex Transfleet. The first stage of this new relationship involved the transfer of all fleet records to Venson. This was a huge task and the transformation took about eight months to effectively achieve, after which time the fleet business was running smoothly.

MeterPlus policy is to lease rather than purchase vehicles and Venson has provided lease vehicles to MeterPlus since December 2004. This agreement is based on a fixed lease price, which is set for each vehicle for a 3-year period, and charged on a monthly basis.

The lease price is determined by the following factors:

• Type of vehicle

• The length of the lease term(usually 3 years)

• Anticipated mileage (the higher the mileage the higher the lease cost).

At the end of the 3-year term, Venson measures current mileage against anticipated mileage. Throughout the term of the lease, Venson provides regular management reports to MeterPlus advising when vehicles are likely to exceed the agreed mileage. This way MeterPlus can swap cars around to manage the fleet so as not to incur penalties and additional costs.

Venson’s fleet management facility provides full servicing, MOTs, road fund licences, and it deals with any mechanical failure or

damage. This is extremely important to MeterPlus who must provide a reliable and safe service to all their drivers, ensuring that standards are maintained and customer expectations are met.

The contract with Venson includes:

• Comprehensive fleet management including inspections, servicing, MOT and a specialist collection & delivery facility

• Contract hire

• Vehicle maintenance

• 24/7/365 vehicle response services

• Vehicle Procurement, equip-for-service and disposal.

Stuart Lee concludes:

“At MeterPlus we have a duty of care to our employees – making sure our vehicles are safe, regularly serviced and fit for purpose. This is really important to us, because it helps to minimise the likelihood of accidents, whilst our drivers are doing their daily jobs. In addition, our vehicles are all equipped with a reflective chevron on the rear of the van (these are normally only found on heavy goods lorries). And, if the vehicle does break down, all drivers have a high visibility vest to help avoid accidents.”

“We are very pleased with the service that Venson has provided to us since December 2004. Over time, we expect to replace all our owned vans with lease vehicles.”

“ We knew that we needed expert help in order to make important transport decisions, and Venson demonstrated this”Stuart Lee, Business Support Manager, MeterPlus