Background

As part of Avis’s service they operate several schemes to improve customer retention and rental experience. These schemes known as the AVIS Preferred service use a plastic card that the customer presents at the rental desk to help speed up transactions.

Thames secured a contract to manufacture, personalise, fulfil and distribute the ID and Charge Card products to the whole of Europe.

Services Provided

• Card Manufacturing
• Personalisation
• Fulfilment
• Mailing and distribution

Project key successes

• Migration of the business from existing supplier
• Fulfilling multiple card and letter designs in many different languages
• Daily distribution of ID and Charge cards throughout Europe
• Managing and reporting on a large number of stock items

Challenges

Avis cater for many stationery and card combinations over a wide product range resulting in a large number of stationery components that all need to be identified in the daily data files for correct fulfilment as well as having to be managed and re-ordered on behalf of the client.

How Thames met the challenge

We developed a new software solution to interpret the data files received and split the data according to a number of logical tests to suit daily fulfilment. The software also manages the stock reporting, ensuring that the stock is monitored and controlled correctly.

To improve the speed of fulfilment and reduce the number of stationery items required, we worked with Avis to convert existing packs using two A4 sheets to a new pack format using a single common A3 design. A template was developed to identify each section of the letter which aided the setup and conversion of over 200 letters in many languages.

A dedicated fulfillment team was used to ensure that the various packs and matrices were understood quickly, thus reducing the production learning curve generally associated with this scale of project.

Further developments

During the course of the relationship Thames worked closely with Avis to offer a number of enhancements to the service they provide.

• We produced standard blank card stocks which are made language specific during personalisation reducing the Card stock items from 150 to less than 50.

• Mailing packs have been streamlined by standardising the carriers used thus reducing the number of stock items that need to managed as well as allowing Avis to buy more cost effectively.

The result

Migration, development and fulfilment was successfully completed within 12 weeks. Since the start of the project Thames have distributed over 1.2million cards across Europe and other parts of the world. We continue to work closely with Avis to look at ways of streamlining and enhancing the mailing packs as well as offering a flexible approach to new Avis marketing activities.

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