About
Farnborough Van and Truck Hire (FVTH) founded in 1985 by Jim and Colin Brown, with just two vehicles. Jim and Colin worked from their family-run farm, renting vehicles to family members and friends close by. Since then, FVTH has grown steadily over the years and has enhanced with a wealth of knowledge and experience to help their customers get the best transport results possible.
From the vehicle hire depots in Portsmouth and Heathrow, FVTH provides services to customers in the South of England and across the UK.
In 1992 FVTH became a Founder member of URG, allowing FVTH to offer customers a nationwide vehicle rental service, whilst the Heathrow depot provides a vehicle drop-off and collection facility at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Since leaving school, Tim Houghton has worked within the industry. Tim started his journey with FVTH in 2017 and has helped the company move forward with the times. Tim came from a company that already had its rental system software in place and when joining FVTH, Prohire was already being used however not to its full potential.
Tim adds: “I took Prohire onboard with Sharron Allen, who I championed into Prohire, she spent a lot of time with the Prohire team, and we managed to turn the platform into something that managed our assets, and we could use. Once we had Sharron as our Prohire champion, we knew we had a system that was going to take us forward.”
Solving the problem
Accident damages and recharges are one of the biggest issues we are facing within the industry, FVTH was struggling with this daily and decided it was time to quickly find a solution and tackle the issue altogether.
Tim decided to speak with the Prohire sales team to find out more about Companion and how FVTH can use the module within their business. After a demo, Tim decided it was the perfect solution to solve the business’s ongoing problem.
Tim adds: “When I took the business over our rechargers were (compared to the amount of fleet) were not comparable with the industry norm. I knew there was an opportunity to make the customers pay for the damage they have caused. When Prohire demonstrated the Companion module to me, it was like an answer to my dreams. You have a before and after comparison where you can evidence the damage.
“We went from a very minimal recharge position, with a piece of paper, to our order number values of recharges now being 10% of our revenue per month.”
