Flexibility key to success

Battery rental market dynamics are evolving due to the recession but flexibility remains key to meeting customer needs, says Chris Hawley, sales director at Norco Group

Battery rental specialist Norco Group has been able to adapt to the recession and changing market conditions.

"At the moment, we are receiving inquiries and orders from companies unable to commit to renewing their materials handling fleets, therefore our short term rental continues to grow steadily but the main growth area for our business is in medium to long term rental," says Chris Hawley, sales director at Norco Group.

Norco puts part of its formula down to flexibility, both in terms of its operations and the options that it offers to customers.

"We supply to all market segments and can supply any variation of battery requirement," says Hawley.

"Understanding the marketplace and our customers' requirements allows us to offer innovative cost saving proposals to meet their specific needs and budgets.We understand that sometimes buying new batteries simply does not stack up in value terms. Therefore we can offer access to purchase from our extensive inventory of cells and tanks and can guarantee all product. Alternatively if budgets do not allow the purchase of new or ex-rental batteries, we can offer rental options, fixing costs for the period." Norco provides support service operations through a range of products designed to suit varying customer requirements. Its products range from full time management operations to ad-hoc work and break down into five categories; Power for Life (a complete service), Battery changing contracts (24/7 site-based service), Topping contracts (regular scheduled engineering visits), Scheduled maintenance plans, Priority response (ad-hoc service).

Norco has also innovated with its rental management system (RMS). This is an integrated operating system used for the tracking and recording of all rental assets. It is a bespoke software and can be adapted to suit any industry or product.

As well as allowing tracking, recording and reporting, it has a search facility to help locate assets/agreements and also shows asset ages, utilisation of fleet and associated costs and revenue.