Why a web portal is essential for private car hire corporate customers

25 August 2015

It is a service through which everyone benefits.

For Echo’s private car hire business customers it means that their time can be freed from managing the often very complex booking, invoicing and reporting requirements of their corporate accounts, allowing them to spend more time working on building new business.

Whilst their corporate customers gain direct access to a sophisticated suite of functionality that enables them to plan and manage their private car hire account services very efficiently in line with corporate policy preferences and reporting.

Echo’s web portal is accessible at all times, providing corporate customers with in-depth functionality significantly beyond anything a private booking app user would experience. This includes: full account management and MI reports, management of all bookings by users of the account, tracking of active bookings, making new bookings for any authorised users of the account and reporting on all activity; any booking references necessary for invoicing purposes; the bookers and their details (including contact details, PA permissions, default booking references, preferred vehicle types etc.); favourite addresses frequently used by bookers of the account (e.g. main office, office branches, laboratories, print shops etc.) and any special driver instructions associated with them.

Individual corporate accounts are typically managed by the customer account administrator, with flexible permissions available for internal corporate users of the web portal. However, all those functions can also be handled on the account’s behalf by Echo’s private car hire customer, the “transport provider”, as required.

Despite the range of Echo’s account management features, the main functionality required and used is still making and managing bookings. So, unsurprisingly, management reports are the second most popular feature of the Echo web portal, a requirement that Echo handles with ease. Corporate end users can run reports that account for all consolidated financial expenditure on private car hire transport, then specifically by e.g. user/project/department such as individual employee spend, spending by passenger, service delivered and booking references.

Via the web portal corporate account customers can use as much or as little of Echo’s functionality as they want and, by adjusting account settings, certain features can be enhanced for particular account activity. This extra flexibility is very popular and can include specific reporting to monitor transportation CO2 emissions or a breakdown of how bookings were notified – by credit card payments, invoice, email or text.

With a web portal everyone benefits, whether because it provides easy access to a comprehensive, yet flexible, account booking platform for corporate customers – or a time-saving, more efficient customer service interface for the private car hire firms.

Echo’s web portal makes it possible.