AVIS SOUTH AFRICA: Astute Affiliations Help Agile Avis Lead the Way

“Avis is a trusted and award-winning brand with a long history of innovation in the car rental industry,” the company opens of the business originally born of Warren Avis’s realisation in 1946 of a rapidly growing need of people to be transported from airports to various destinations. “We are one of the world’s top brands for customer loyalty, with a commitment to true convenience and exceptional service.”

With Zeda Car Rental and Tours set up in Bloemfontein in 1967, shortly afterwards Federale Volksbeleggings Bpk, the Sanlam subsidiary, acquired a majority shareholding in the company, later entering into a joint venture with Avis Rent A Car and adopting the Avis name. Thus followed consistent steady growth for the business, and by 1972 the car rental side had expanded to encompass Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

By the 1980s the company had established a countrywide footprint and grown beyond the borders into Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland and administered sub-licensees in Angola, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In 1997 Avis Southern Africa was listed on the Johannesburg, Namibian and Botswana Stock Exchanges, acquired in full by industrial brand management company Barloworld in 2005 and proudly a division thereof ever since.

AHEAD THROUGH AGILITY

Avis car hire locations now punctuate the entire country, at all major airports, in city centres and a number of larger towns, fully maximising South Africa’s enviable combination of stunning landscapes and an equally wide choice of vehicles. “We have a long history of providing the highest service levels in the industry with a global branch network,” Avis effuses. “We serve all South African towns through an extensive car hire network with over 130 locations.

“Multicultural, multilingual and with a multitude of natural wonders, South Africa is the Rainbow Nation in more ways than one and we allow you to create your own safari and explore it all with the comfort and freedom of Avis car hire.”

It is fair to say that Avis South Africa should have been among those most catastrophically hit as the pandemic took hold, as the wholesale closure of airports under lockdown spelt a temporary complete cessation of business and the sudden severance of a crucial sector for the brand. Then-newly appointed CEO Ramasela Ganda last year described the feeling within the wider Barloworld Group of having been at the ‘epicentre’ of the situation, as all ports of entry slammed shut with around 60% of the company’s business rooted in tourism.

While it would still be reductive, and not entirely accurate, to say that Avis swerved entirely the Covid tumult, a combination of Ganda’s deep business leader experience and Avis’s customary innovation and agility saw the company act decisively to deploy its vast, yet dormant fleet in a host of other ways and divert down avenues more apposite to the situation.

“There was a lot I had to do very quickly, but it did provide opportunities,” Ganda relayed, with the announcement of national lockdown having come with him just four days into her new post. “As Avis, we reacted really fast, so that by the time that most people realised there was a new normal we were very much ahead. The agility we have really helped us to keep going during the tough times and puts us in a very good position.”

Not only availing of its vehicles to deliver groceries and other essential items, as well as liquor, Avis was also forced to constantly react to the changing market and adapt its offering to consumer behaviour and budget changes.

LEADING THE WAY

With international travel having returned in exactly the buoyant way that Ganda predicted midway through last year, the famed Avis agility and willingness to constantly break new ground has seen it partner with Emirates as the preferred service provider for complimentary Chauffeur Drive airport transfers for its first and business class customers travelling to any of the airline’s three gateways in South Africa, including Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. 

“Avis has an exceptional and established track record of providing safe and convenient chauffeur driven services to all its customers,” commented Rebone Motsatsi, Executive: Car Rental Operations. “Building on this track record, the business deployed its world class systems to ensure that the partnership with Emirates is one that will exceed customer expectations.” 

This is the latest in a series of partnerships which have helped to keep Avis in pole position for so long. Airline partners are some of the titans of the industry, including British Airways, Lufthansa and KLM, while a range of banking affiliates such as American Express, eBucks and Absa Rewards open up superb car hire discounts and rewards to members and fans; these affiliations remain critical to Avis’s continued dominance, even more so as the Woodford Group announces a partnership with Enterprise Holdings to make the company’s services available in South Africa for the first time.

Avis is also associated with Advancing Tourism to Africa (ATTA) and Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa (FTTSA), contributing to the transformation of the tourism industry, while last year, Avis Budget Car Rental teamed up with FlexClub to launch month-to-month car subscriptions for customers shopping online for a car, resulting in hundreds of members across South Africa. Now, the two have partnered again to allow consumers to rent cars on longer-term subscriptions from Avis Fleet.

It comes in response to rising demand for a service offering that rivals traditional vehicle financing, according to Avis, as demand for subscriptions on flexible contracts running month-to-month increased sharply in 2021. Initially available to consumers in Johannesburg and Pretoria, Avis foresees nationwide rollout of the programme set to, “fill a gap left by the low penetration of private leasing in South Africa.”

While external partnerships are of undeniable importance, at Avis there is also a fierce, unending commitment to the power of the internal relationships it nurtures, closely working with its own people to train, develop, lead and reward the best talent recruited for this service- and customer-centric business. “While all the cars, locations and systems we use obviously help, it is ultimately the people – our Brand Ambassadors – that will either make the experience a great one, or a mediocre one, for our customers,” Avis concludes.

“Our people have the power to enhance or destroy the value of our brand, and the connection and alignment that they have with it and all it stands for is very clear and strong. We focus on the development of each Brand Ambassador to improve their skills and abilities for personal growth and service excellence and, ultimately, grow our own leaders.”