Case study Autohopper

Business Challenges

Car rental platform lacks user-friendliness
Insufficient insight for planning optimisation
Reduce time-consuming administrative processes

Keys to Success

Intuitive app with Mendix low-code platform
Integration of accounting systems for ease of use
Franchise support via 'shop-in-shop' concept

Results

25% cost savings achieved
Customer satisfaction rose to a score of 8.5
Administrative efficiency: 1 FTE less

Case study Autohopper

Autohopper, the largest car rental company in The Netherlands, has worked with Emixa to further develop an existing application that allows the company's more than one hundred local franchise locations to independently rent cars. The app, built with Mendix's low-code platform, provides clearer visibility into the rental process after the improvements and is now saving Autohopper’s back office 25 percent in costs. User satisfaction increased from a 2 to an 8.5.

Business Challenges

Autohopper offers a unique rental concept in the Netherlands. Unlike the well-known car rental companies, Autohopper customers can not only rent vehicles in the big cities or at airports, but also from local automotive companies and garages in medium-sized towns. Autohopper does not work with daily rates but uses fixed round prices. The customer base consists of approximately 60 percent private and 40 percent commercial clients.

The rental vehicles are owned by Autohopper. Through various franchisees, often existing garage owners or automotive companies, customers can hire a car or van. The franchisees work in the platform offered by Autohopper. However, users were not satisfied with the quality offered. The collaboration with the partner with whom Autohopper initially built the rental application no longer met the needs. Looking for a party that could increase the user-friendliness and quality of the rental platform and take care of integrating accounting packages, Autohopper found Emixa. To facilitate the process from Autohopper and franchisee to customer, Autohopper had an application built with Mendix's low-code platform.

Keys to Success

The application has been taken on by Emixa and now streamlines operational processes at the franchisee, the IT systems at the back-end of Autohopper and the platform used by the renter at the front-end. Many franchisees make use of the so-called "shop-in-shop" concept, which allows them to also rent vehicles via Autohopper within their own company.

A clear application with little hassle is a prerequisite for this. In the application franchisees can now view planning, arrange invoicing and keep track of damage management, among other things. This allows the company to provide optimal insight into occupancy rates, statistics on car usage and to know which models are popular. For franchisees, this is important information: the more optimal the planning, the better the returns.

Results

This idea has been fully written out together with Emixa as a "story" and then realised in rapid time afterwards. By integrating different systems, such as the reservation system and accounting software, and digitising processes, Autohopper has become an even more efficient organisation.

The application also provides many advantages for the back office at Autohopper's head office. All files are digitised and in principle no more paper comes out of the printer. Digitisation has resulted in cost savings of 25 percent and the administrative department now needs 1 FTE less to successfully do the work.

Autohopper is pleased with the achieved results, but there are still plenty of new plans. "The collaboration with Emixa has exceeded our expectations," says Steven Donselaar, founder of Autohopper. "After the initial measurements, our franchisees gave us a satisfaction score of 8.5, which is of course something to be enormously proud of."

Emixa Drives Fleet Optimisation with Data Analysis

Thanks to working with Emixa, we can now provide optimal insight into occupancy rates, statistics on car usage, and which models are most in demand. Ultimately, with Emixa's help, we want to connect with the car so we can conduct data analysis to optimise our fleet.