Cass Casestudy (Interview with Gary Camber)

Gary Camber, Senior Manager says, “We're more than happy with the risk management and the driver solutions that Praiso has provided. As a company, we were monitoring our drivers’ speeding habits and driving habits but we weren't very proactive in dealing with how to rectify it. Praiso has done that for us. With the campaigns they send out, the guys are engaging with the videos and the messages. Where it's benefited us most is their interaction with our drivers.”

Has CASS seen a good ROI since adopting Praiso? “We've had a huge saving on fuel costs this year to the tune of £64k which is massive, and we're reinvesting that back into the business by buying new vehicles, so the drivers do see a return on their sensible and economical driving. They get to drive new vans every year. It’s massive! To invest money that we've saved in fuel back into the business is great. We've also saved £75k in reduced insurance premiums. Combine that with the £64k in fuel cost, that's a massive £139K overall in the first year. We've also reduced the speeding fines through receiving less speeding tickets by a massive 65% which is fantastic. The guys are learning to drive within the legal limit of the roads; everybody is learning from this programme. In the first year, we've reduced our accident rate by 30%.”

In order to get drivers really engaged, gamification is an integral part of our driver engagement proposition and our delivery protocols. To ensure engagement with the drivers, we keep it punchy, exciting, entertaining, educational and interactive all at the same time. Let's ask Gary what happened with CASS and their drivers once they started using Praiso. “After the initial resistance for the first month or so, the guys were a little bit anti-change as you would expect. But now they've all seemed to have bought into it all. The vast majority have bought into the concept of Praiso and what that can do for us as a company. Likewise them as employees because the savings all lead to new vehicles and new equipment bought for them to use.”

At the heart of Praiso is a drivers league table named ‘The Wall of Legends.’ This is part of the gamification techniques used throughout the system and provides great competition by fleet drivers to be the best they can be. We ask Gary how this helped with getting the drivers to use the system. “When we started, we had 17 drivers in the blue master drivers zone and now a year on we have 118 drivers in the blue master drivers zone, so that's a massive improvement in just a year which is fantastic. We're also reducing down the green and the amber and certainly the red zones and pushing for everybody to be in the blue zone. We get a weekly driving report for engagement, so we know which guys are engaging with the messages and the videos. The drivers can also log into their individual driver portal, so they can see where they sit in the Wall of Legends and how their score is improving. If it's not improving, they can see what they need to do to get it to improve and obviously from a manager's point of view, we can monitor that via the reports that come out every week. We can stay on top of that as well as Praiso. It's very much a joint effort.”

Traditional driver training is costly and infrequent. What we offer is absolutely and categorically different; we stay with your drivers every single day for as long as it takes. Let’s ask Gary if he agrees? “Value for money from Praiso is far better than one or two day training that is forgotten about within a few weeks. Praiso is every day in real-time, constantly monitoring the guys. Reduction in fuel costs and insurance premium far outweighs the cost of the yearly subscription.”

We at Praiso strive to always be the best and perpetually improve our product offering to enhance the customer journey, driver engagement, ease of use and its effectiveness and usefulness to the end users. We ask Gary how the product has improved? “The reporting side is a lot easier, the messages and the campaigns are still going out on a regular basis as they normally do, but I think the reporting side has definitely evolved to benefit us in the office who are the ones actually working from those reports.”

Gary, would you recommend Praiso? “I would recommend it, I have recommended it to others. It's the way forward for driver training and driver behaviour.  Any fleet manager who took Praiso on board would see the benefits of it within the first few months.”

One thing that's also important in our whole solution are the rewards and incentives we apply to drivers; it's a win-win situation. They're supplying the cost savings, the driver improvement, the driver safety, the lower insurance premiums, so why not reward and incentivise your drivers just the way you like to be rewarded from Praiso? Gary further explains this critical element. “Over this past year, we've introduced some incentive schemes for our drivers to reward good driving behaviour and this is working really well. It inspires competition and is a good thing.”

We've all heard about global warming and it's our collective responsibility to help the environment when and where we can. The impact of Praiso on lowering fuel consumption is a significant factor for all companies wanting to lower their CO2 exhaust emissions so we can all enjoy a cleaner environment. Gary says, “It wasn't something that we initially thought about when we took this product on, but with the reduction in fuel and better driving, yes, that's having a knock on effect with our carbon footprint. We're reducing CO2 and we're more than happy with it. Anything we can do to help the environment is good for the company.”

It's fantastic when customers tell you you've not only met their expectations but you've surpassed them. Let's see what CASS has to say about Praiso’s customer care. “We are never left wanting to know any answers to any questions. If we come up with any suggestions for improvements, they're taken on board. If they can be brought into action, they are and it’s been great. Again, we are never left wanting to know any answers to any questions. Pretty much 24/7. And we've decided to sign a contract to continue for another two years. I spoke to the brokers where we're being offered bursaries as incentives to stay with Praiso. We are more than happy with the return on investment that we put into Praiso. We're educating our drivers to drive sensibly, drive safely, so it’s not just about money, it's about compliance and duty of care. We want to stay with Praiso for the long haul. Speeding was a real bad one for us and we needed to get that down. In two years’ time we'll be talking about this and hopefully we'll have all the drivers in the blue! The MD is sleeping like a baby these days.”