WHY IT RATES: Travel agents will soon be able to provide clients with connected rental cars thanks to a new partnership between Avis and Toyota.-Donald Wood, Breaking News Senior Writer.
Avis Budget Group, Inc. have announced a multi-year deal that will add 10,000 Toyota vehicles to Avis Car Rental's expanding fleet of connected vehicles.
The services provided through Toyota's MSPF will benefit both Avis customers - through an enhanced and more personalized experience - and the company through improved informatics, fleet management, and operational efficiency.
"As connected car technology continues to evolve in the auto industry, we are rapidly adapting our fleet and rolling this technology out to our locations," said Arthur Orduna, executive vice president and chief innovation officer, Avis Budget Group. "These advancements further improve our fleet management capabilities, which enables us to provide Fleet Management as a Service (FMaaS), while also enhancing the customer experience with time savings and mobile app integration. We're a step closer to a fully connected fleet and ultimately moving towards a new future for our business."
Part of Avis' commitment to reinventing the car rental experience is ensuring a seamless line of communication from the connected fleet to the Avis mobile app, where travelers can access important information about their rental, change or upgrade their vehicle, locate their vehicle and more. Since the Avis mobile app's transformative launch in July 2016, usage has grown to over one million transactions from more than 350,000 unique customers and has increased customer satisfaction ratings by 20 percent.
Avis Budget Group has committed to operating a fully connected global fleet by 2020 and will have 100,000 fully connected cars in the United States this year. As part of this effort, earlier this month, Avis Budget Group commenced installations of 50,000 Unified Telematics Platform (UTP) devices, provided by I.D. Systems, more than doubling Avis Car Rental's existing fleet of connected vehicles.
Connected Toyota vehicles are expected to be available this September as 2019 vehicle models are introduced into the fleet.
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