Bespoke support for the WCD Group

The WCD Group, comprising the WaterCoolersDirect and KettleTaps brands, specialise in hydration solutions for office and the home. Their mission is to help cut plastic pollution one bottle at a time by encouraging folk to refill and not buy single-use plastic.

Founded nearly two decades ago, the WCD Group provides a wide range of hot and cold drinking water solutions, ranging from plumbed-in water dispensers, fountains and boilers to instant hot taps.

With a team of 50 people across the UK and a distributor network of 200 partners, it has an installed base of 50,000 products in use across the UK, with blue chip customers including Barclays, CBRE, Amazon, Nationwide, Eversheds, and many local authorities, health clubs, universities and colleges.

With a focus on refill, the Group promotes its hydration stations so that teams can self-fill a reusable bottle or keep cup and reduce buying single-use plastic bottles that end up in landfill or the environment. A staggering 7.7 billion bottles are bought every year in the UK.

With such an extensive network, the company needed a vehicle provider that was reliable and responsive to its needs, which led to it choosing Reflex Vehicle Hire.

The company’s entire fleet of fully branded 21 vans and 2 cars is provided by Reflex, with the vans used by engineers to service its national customer base, while cars are used for management and sales.

As the van fleet is out on the road for much of the time, vehicles are used as a mobile office, so the firm had bespoke requirements when it came to specification and racking.

Reflex Vehicle Hire provided a personalised service to ensure the vehicles provided met the company’s unique needs.

Sarah Frampton, WCD Group HR manager and business administrator, who is responsible for the fleet, said:

The van is the driver’s office on wheels, so we specified air-conditioning, reversing sensors, which are not always available on panel vans, and satellite navigation, which was arranged by Reflex.

In addition, the vans were specified with racking, deadlocks, a power inverter and livery, which were all organised through Reflex Vehicle Hire.

Sarah added:

Reflex came to speak to us to discuss what we wanted. Overall, Reflex provides a good service, and we know who to go to when we require something. They always respond in good time.

The WCD Group also benefits from Reflex Vehicle Hire’s safety-as-standard commitment, with commercial vehicles fitted with tracking and dashcams as part of the Driive with Reflex modular safety system. This gives the company access to vehicle tracking reports and dashcam footage to help manage the fleet more effectively.

Footage has helped defend against non-fault accidents and improved driver training, whilst tracking data has proved a valuable tool for assessing fleet movements and maintaining high customer service levels.

A review is now planned to maximise fleet efficiency, including implementing a standardised racking system, which is part of detailed discussions with Reflex.

Sarah said:

We receive great customer service from Reflex Vehicle Hire which makes for an excellent partnership.