So, once you’re set up you then need to process new users, ensure the cars are road safe, clean and charging!

There are 2 key elements to onboarding members.

Firstly, it is essential to ensure that you collect the appropriate information on your users. A registration document will take car of that, but you will have to check that their driving license is still valid. You can do this by asking for your users to get a DVLA check-code and provide it to you. You can then check the code against the DVLA to see how many points it has and if it is valid.

Secondly you need to ensure that the new user is comfortable with their use of the booking technology, driving the vehicle, and charging it. This is achieved through an induction process which is carried out by existing members. It is also an opportunity to check that the user matches their driving license.

Most cars these days will notify you of deflated tyres, but it is also important to check the tyre tread. You should check this at point of purchase, as some cars will already be well worn. The legal limit is 1.6mm depth of tyre tread, but the RAC recommends replacing tyres when it has reached 3mm.

How to check tyre tread depth with a 20p https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrZZqUWYv7w&feature=youtu.be

Keeping the car clean. As part of the induction, it is important to emphasize that this is a volunteer run operation, and that the car will never be like-new sparkling on the outside. It is also time to notify people that they are responsible for cleaning up after themselves. Also, worth asking users to tell you if they encounter a dirty car. You can then gently tell the earlier driver that they left a mess.

In our case, members have taken upon themselves to take the car onto their drive and give the inside a hoover.

Troubleshooting

The most frequent issue we encounter is with the car being charged. People sometimes forget to plug the car back in and activate the charger. This is obviously very frustrating for the next driver. We have found that people just have to be told once that they have inconvenienced someone, and they will not do it again.

We have also had charger malfunctions. So far, they were resolvable by us – we have the keys to the electric cabinet where we simply turn the chargers off and on again.