D&B

D&B CHARGE & RIDE:

A SMART RELIEF FOR CHARGING STRESS

In the relatively short five years that he has worked at D&B, Stephan Hannema has seen mobility change in a big way, and become adept at tackling the accompanying challenges head on. Last year, he was appointed to lead the whole Mobility department of the multiservice facility management provider, where he and his team work hard to ensure none of their clients ever lack anything in the full range of mobility services D&B offers.

How have you seen mobility change in recent years? “The biggest change has been the electrification of cars, with a lot of corporates – including our clients – having set specific targets to electrify their fleets. This is opening up loads of opportunities for us and is a trend that, as a service provider, we want and need to act on. At the same time, we’re seeing that clients with executive or private drivers want to nix the idle hours. They are looking for a more flexible solution, instead of having drivers sitting around in a waiting room all day between one ride for that client and the next. We are actively working on more flexible options and thinking about ways to save time and which new products or services we can put together to offer that. We always tackle the challenges clients bring us head on to find a solution.”

One of those solutions is your special Charge & Ride service. How does it work? “A few years ago, a client came to us with a problem. In their plans, they had framed the ambition to electrify their entire fleet before 2025. Only, their office didn’t have enough charging points available, and with too few charging facilities, sustainability aspirations get to be a tough proposition. We sat down with them and, turns out, they had loads of people who were plugging in their cars in the morning and unplugging at the end of the day, giving none of their colleagues a chance to charge. Within the company there were also group chats to coordinate who gets to charge when, and colleagues even give each other their keys to exchange cars. Charge & Ride eliminates all the stress around charging. We drive cars from where they’re parked to the charging station and then from the charging station back, which stretches charging point productivity by 400%. People come into work in the morning, are greeted by one of our staff, hand them their car keys, and we do the rest. This service is user-friendly for clients, balances out EV charging and gets the most out of charging points.”

D&B has also offered a driver service for decades. What’s your USP here? “As with Charge & Ride, it’s all about the user experience – and in our driver services it’s largely in the details. We want to give our users the best possible experience

from the first to the last moment. We always arrive 15 minutes early, have a beverage waiting for you and, if we happen to know your preferred newspaper, we bring that along, too. During the ride, we try to go the extra mile to make sure the car is a real extension of a client’s office. By sending the same driver as much as possible, we also create familiarity. Our pool of drivers consists of students and certified executive chauffeurs who are all flexible, articulate and discreet. We do our utmost to assure our client has a pleasant ride with us.”

What are your ambitions for the future? “We would like to further expand Charge & Ride to multi-tenant buildings. As our proposition is multi-service, the aim is to integrate our services in every facet of office settings. That means users see us in different iterations: as drivers, receptionists, cleaners and so on. The more services we deliver and the more people we have on the ground, the more we can shape the ideal guest experience.”

D&B The Mobility Group Part of D&B The Facility Group Gondel 1 1186 MJ Amstelveen +31 (0)20 420 06 91 www.db.nl

Stephan Hannema