Crystal Collections: A truly nationwide company

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The development of a nationwide logistics network is a key reason why Crystal Collections has become one of the UK’s leading providers of asset recovery and collection services. Lloyd Hope, Transport & Logistics Director at Crystal Collections explains how the Company has been investing for the future.

It was always our intention to implement a streamlined transporter-based approach to vehicle logistics. However, the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020 provided the perfect motivation to accelerate our plans, as we knew they would also enable us to operate in a Covid-19 secure way.

In May, we successfully launched our cloud based, “Inspect & Collect” system. Specifically designed to coordinate the inspection and collection of vehicles without face-to-face interaction, the system removes any contact risk for customers and staff and also enables us to provide greater levels of understanding, communication, and transparency.

At the same time, we began making considerable investment in our fleet of collection vehicles which range in size from single vehicle carriers, through to 32 tonne multi vehicle transporters; all of which are exclusively operated by our own staff.

In August, we opened our sixth regional operating centre in Fife, Scotland which, like all our operating sites, is licensed by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency for use by vehicle transporters over 3.5 tonnes. This means Crystal Collections can truly claim to operate on a nationwide basis, with its own staff and vehicle fleet and, we believe, makes us the UK’s premier vehicle collections company.

The £1,000,000+ investment and changes we are making, bring numerous benefits for our clients. They enable us to provide greater flexibility, we can act more quickly and, by reducing the time it takes between collecting a client’s vehicle and its delivery to auction, we are helping client’s maximise resale values. Our clients also have the added peace of mind in knowing their vehicle collections are only ever carried out by Crystal Collections’ highly trained and regulated staff; not unregulated third party contractor, and because we have to travel shorter distances to collect vehicles, our carbon footprint has reduced by more than 50%.

We still have some work to do to make our vehicle logistics infrastructure fully streamlined. However, we expect this to be completed in the next few months, which is much earlier than originally planned. At that point, we look forward to providing more updates on changes and improvements to the way we operate and, in early 2021 will be publishing our first industry White Paper where we will examine changes taking place in the Asset Finance and Leasing sector.

We have come a long way since we were founded in 1995. Through our ongoing investment, development and innovation, we continue to show why we are a market leader in the collection of vehicles for finance companies in the UK.

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