DriveNow was founded by BMW and Sixt AG and established in Copenhagen as a franchise business under the name DriveNow - operated by Arriva. Arriva is Denmark's largest bus operator and operates buses throughout the country and trains in central and western Jutland. DriveNow also operates in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Vienna, London, Helsinki, Lisbon, Milan, Stockholm and Brussels.
Successful car-sharing service minimizes manual processes and automates customer parking fees with workflow from Innofactor.
In Copenhagen, short distances, heavy traffic and limited parking opportunities lead to many people choosing bikes or public transport for everyday life. Few, however, can completely ignore the flexibility provided by a car for i.e. meetings, family visits outside the city or large purchases. DriveNow makes it easy to borrow a modern, safe car for a shorter period of time.
"We notice a steadily increasing interest and have recently added 200 cars to our car park, which operates around Copenhagen as well as in the 'satellite divisions' in Dragør and Ballerup," says Steen Herløv Andersen, Operational Manager at DriveNow Denmark – Operated by Arriva.
The fast-growing car-sharing service is owned by BMW, operates in 13 European metropolitan areas, and is operated in Denmark on a franchise basis by Arriva. The growth, however, has led to a significant administrative burden in the form of a growing number of parking fines – currently around 30–40 per day.
"It is the customer who parks illegally. But it is us, the car operator, who receives the fine and has to pay it. We subsequently invoice the customer, which is a complex process involving registration searches, switching systems, manual copy-paste and mail printing," explains Steen Herløv Andersen.
"It takes a really long time and the employee who is responsible for the task has an incredibly hard time keeping up with it for long periods. With so many manual processes, there are also slight errors, which is bothersome to both the customers and to us," he adds. That is why DriveNow asked Innofactor to create a workflow that can assist and, to a large extent, automate the work of re-billing the parking charges.
The workflow is built on a combination of Microsoft Flow, SharePoint Online, and Nintex, and starts when DriveNow receives a parking fee. The workflow automatically extracts data from the invoice, builds a list of current cases in SharePoint Online, and requests image documentation to verify the fee.
"Now our employees can easily review the cases and ascertain whether the individual parking fee appears to be issued on a reasonable basis before we bill the customers," says Steen Herløv Andersen. If the fee looks OK, another part of the workflow takes over and sends an email to the customer with a copy of the fee as well as the invoice due with the parking fee amount, plus the administration fee.
"A lot of the busy, time-consuming, administrative work is now automatically done in the background, which relieves our employees and makes the work day more interesting. We have cut the processing time down to one third, minimizing the risk of errors and are able to expedite the fees immediately," he explains.
As an added bonus, DriveNow has now reduced the number of calls from unsatisfied customers billed for fines long after they borrowed the car and possibly forgot that they parked illegally. Steen Herløv Andersen further states that the financial risk is now limited due to the fact that DriveNow receives the money faster for the parking fees it has paid on behalf of the customers.
"It is a really good solution that eases a very specific challenge we were having. Both the development process and cooperation with Innofactor have been very positive, not least because they quickly understood our case-handling process and were spot on with the solution we needed. All in all, Innofactor has done a really good job," states Steen Herløv Andersen.
"A lot of the busy, time-consuming, administrative work is now automatically done in the background, which relieves our employees and makes the work day more interesting. We have cut the processing time down to one third, minimizing the risk of errors and are able to expedite the fees immediately"
Steen Herløv Andersen
Operational Manager
DriveNow Denmark – Operated by Arriva
The following solutions and technologies, among others, are a part of of the overall solution delivered to DriveNow:
