Companies did not leave over the service.
They left over the invoice.
The work you are losing
The sales director’s trip, the client to collect from the airport, the shuttle between the two offices, the member of staff getting home at eleven at night. Well-paid work, booked ahead, and repeated.
And it is work the company has not stopped doing: it is doing it with somebody else.
Why you are losing it
Not because the other lot drive better. Because finance wants one invoice at the end of the month, a list that can be split by cost centre, and an assistant able to book for a director without being in the car with them. Ringing an operator produces none of that.
It is exactly what the platforms sell to procurement: not better cars, accounting. And on that ground an operator with a notepad and a phone room starts out losing, however well it works.
What it takes to get it back
Booking on behalf of somebody else
Whoever books is almost never whoever travels. The assistant puts in the passenger’s name and number and the driver arrives knowing who to look for, without anybody having to install anything.
One account and a statement that adds up
The month’s journeys, with amounts and references ready, split by who asked for them. It is the difference between an invoice that goes through and an invoice that comes back with three questions on it.
The journey on account, not paid in the car
A director does not argue about the price with the driver and does not sign receipts on the pavement. The journey is invoiced, the driver knows it before setting off, and money is not discussed in the car.
How it works in practice
The company is a partner: its own price list, its own people allowed to book, journeys on account and a monthly statement worked out from the arrangement itself.
A procurement team does not change supplier because somebody is pleasant. It changes when it receives an invoice it does not have to reconstruct.