usrentacar.co.uk ® Car Hire USA Blog

Hi all,

We get some great pictures sent to us from customers who have used our service for their USA car hire, many of them are sent to us via the usrentacar voucher app.

Today I thought I’d share a few of the photo’s we’ve recently been sent.

As you can see some cracking photo’s, some really nice one’s of the Ford Mustang.

Which photo do you think is the best?

regards,

James

Hi all,

We first launched the usrentacar voucher app back in April 2011 as a way to help customers collect their car rental without having to print of paper car rental vouchers.

Since its first incarnation the app has morphed to include our Wait Time feature, our review option and our popular car finder service. Recently we hit the 5000 downloads  milestone  so I thought I’d share some information regarding the app.

Obviously the UK is the Country that has provided the most downloads, but which other Countries like our app?

1. UK
2. USA
3. Italy
4. France
5. Brazil
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Ireland
9. Australia
10. Spain

The app has provided over 2000 wait times at over 50 USA locations all of which have been embedded in to our results page to create an unique average.

The features of our app have been copied by a host of car rental companies which I guess is a compliment!?
We’ve started work on a new version of the app which we believe will again be another first within our industry, I’ll keep you posted on the new features as soon as I learn more.

I can confirm that the feedback we’ve received regarding the apps own review system has been heard and will be amended, if you have any feedback for our mobile team please feel free to comment below.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Just a very quick post to mention that version 1.3 of the usrentacar.co.uk voucher app has today hit the app store.

There isn’t anything new to really announce, this latest addition is purely a bug fix. Here is a list of additions.

• App Speed – we’ve sped up the whole app experience and will continue to look at ways of making it even faster.
• Push Notification Fix – A push notification will now be sent directly to your phone as soon as your voucher is ready.
• Push Notification Modification – As per our previous post Grr stop waking me up usrentacar.co.uk we’ve amended the scheduling to be more user friendly.
• Car Finder – Improved car finder accuracy.
• Reviews – Fixed bug that stopped reviews being sent.
• Review Photo’s – we’ve altered the size of the image being sent to allow them to be automatically uploaded to the usrentacar.co.uk main site.

We have some deals going on behind the scene’s here that should see a modified version of the usrentacar voucher app being released hopefully in the next 6 months. I will keep you all posted on developments in the mean time for those of you who have not yet downloaded the app here’s a brief description.

About the usrentacar voucher app

The usrentacar.co.uk iPhone application is a free tool to help assist users with car rental bookings. The application’s primary function is to provide users with a mobile version of a car rental voucher which is used to collect their pre-reserved car rental.

The application is also an information resource for existing and new users. The application will also provide users with average ‘wait times‘ for collecting their vehicle (they can also add their own wait time) The application also offers users a chance to ‘review’ their car rental experience. The application will also provide access to latest blogs on car hire in the USA.

In the last major update the app also now includes the “car finder” feature which allows users to pin their parked car on a map, then at their leisure instruct the app to find their vehicle, the app will then plot a course back to the users parked car.

The app is free and ready to download from the apple store and google play.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been taking advantage of some holiday time owed by snowboarding in Austria and soaking up the sun in Orlando. Yep life’s been tough…. any way I’m back now and have a lot of posts to come, mostly regarding our eminent launch of the new look usrentacar website, fingers crossed Wednesday could be the launch date.

Back to the subject of today’s post, Grrr stop waking me up usrentacar.co.uk!! An interesting title perhaps but something that’s been bugging a few people who use our award nominated iPhone app.

One of the push notifications the app provides is to ask users to rate the app so others can get a good idea of how it works and if its useful.

Now when we programmed this particular notification we assumed people
would want to review the app while on holiday so we set the notification to activate at 8 am U.S. time. This however was a mistake as if you’re in the UK the notification would hit at around 3 am!!!!

I can confirm today we have fixed this error and would like to apologise to anyone that was rudely awoken by us asking for a review. I know how much I value my own sleep so the new time is now 17:00 UK time.

I hope this now fixes the issue and people can continue to use the app without losing sleep.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Got some great news through today from our IT guys showing that theusrentacar voucher app has now had more than 2000 downloads from the apple app store.

We released our voucher app in April of this year to make collection of your USA car hire as quick and simply as possible. Uptake of version 1 was excellent and we got some great feedback from users.

The app was also nominated for a couple of awards this year including the British Travel Awards Best Travel and Tourism iPhone/Smart Phone App up against heavy weights like British Airways and Kayak.

The original version featured

• Online voucher – pick up your car rental by showing your phone.
• Wait Time feature
• Review feature
• Blog

We launched the next version of the app (version 1.2) last month and added our popular Car Finder feature and some push and local notifications.

You can download the usrentacar voucher app by visiting the apple app store and typing in usrentacar or you can scan the QR code above.

I wonder how quickly we can get to 3000 downloads?

regards,

James

Hi all,

Last week we launched version 1.2 of the usrentacar voucher app, added our car finder feature and made providing reviews and pictures even simpler. Uptake has been great and we are now beginning to see customer leave reviews in the app store.

To date and touching wood profusely the lowest rating we’ve received is a 4 out of 5! Which as you can imagine has made us very happy indeed.

Here are a few of the review that you can view in the iPhone app store.

If the app is as good as the company then its a winning combination. I’ve been booking my cars with them for a few years and you cant beat the service they give.

Anything that reduces the paperwork when going to the US is a plus.

What a great app. Simple to use and all your information on hand.

Absolutely brilliant app. Thoroughly recommended. All the info you need plus a lot more.

Great app, simple to use, no need to worry about forgetting your voucher with this app. Average wait time indicator is also a great help.

If you’ve downloaded our app please feel free to write a review and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, what are you waiting for

Download the usrentacar voucher app

Regards,

James

Hi all,

Last week we launched version 1.2 of the usrentacar voucher app which included new additions such as the usrentacar car finder.

This weekend saw a mini explosion of downloads from all across the world, so I thought it might be nice to show the top 10 Countries to download version 1.2 of the voucher app.

Top 10 Countries To Download Version 1.2 Of The usrentacar Voucher App

1. UK
2. USA
3. France
4. Italy
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Ireland
8. Kuwait
9. Saudi Arabia
10. Russia

A really interesting mix of Countries here, I’m surprised to see Switzerland and Saudi Arabia appearing in the top 10, it will be interesting to see how this changes as we draw close to Christmas.

About the usrentacar voucher app

If you are fed up with having to bother with the hassle of printing off pieces of paper to take with you when you collect your car hire USA then the usrentacar voucher App is for you.

Its simple; just download the iPhone App from the App Store and your rental voucher will be available via your iPhone, iPad or iTouch device.

But its not just an voucher App it will also give you access to some pretty snazzy information. The App will also help you find out the current average wait time to collect your car, you can also review and rates your USA car rental experience as well as keep up to date with all the latest news and info from the usrentacar.co.uk blog.

To download the usrentacar voucher app and turn your voucher mobile, please visit the App Store by clicking here.

Regards,

James,

Hi all,

On the 21st October we launched version 1.2 of the usrentacar voucher app, along with some push notification amendments we launched our Car Finder feature.

What is Car Finder?

Car Finder is a usrentacar.co.uk designed feature to help our cust0mers locate their vehicles after a long day at the parks or when shopping in an unfamiliar location.

How it works?

Car Finder works by integrating the iPhone’s inbuilt gps system and google maps.

Step 1

Once you have logged in to our app using your email address and your password, press the Car Finder icon positioned far right on the navigation bar.

Step 2

Once your iPhone has picked up your GPS position click on the “Save Location” button in the top right hand corner.
You will note an icon of a car appears in your position.

You can also view your car’s position in Satellite mode.

Step 3

When you are ready to locate your car, click on “find car” positioned in the top left hand corner, this button will alter to “refresh” once used.
You will note that your current position is symbolised by walking human icon.

You can also view this in Satellite mode.

Step 4

As you follow the route the human icon will also move, you can speed this up by clicking on the “refresh” button which replaces the “find car” button.

To add a new position for your car simply click on “Clear Location” and begin the process again.

I hope you like this new feature, what are your first impression’s?

Is there something else you’d like us to add?

regards,

James,

Hi all,

Have you downloaded the usrentacar voucher app?

If your answer is yes, then well done you’re obviously very clever and probably very attractive….oh and check your updates…

Hi all,

Yesterday I managed to grab 30 mins with usrentacar.co.uk ideas man, Frank Williams, at our offices in Farnborugh.

Frank Williams has been at usrentacar.co.uk since 2004, he has pretty much worked in the car rental sector all his professional life, starting from reservations agent and swiftly moving up to management roles. I can easily say he has forgotten more about car hire than I’ll ever know.

At present he is Business Development Director at usrentacar.co.uk, however this year you may well have spoken to him on the phone, as he explains below whilst describing his jack of all trades job role.

Describing my job role is pretty hard at the moment. I made a conscious decision at the end on 2010 to spend a lot more time on the shop floor, getting stuck in, taking customer calls, listening to their feedback. I’ve learnt over time and experience that detaching yourself from the basics is recipe for disaster. I make it my general rule to spend at least 1 day a week on the res floor.

Frank went on to add.

My main job role though is to grow the business through technology and my main focus at present has been the usrentacar voucher app.

usrentacar.co.uk released its first app for the iPhone in April 2011, and to date has had over 1000 downloads, which prompted the release of a dedicated Android app in June.

The idea of the voucher app came about in one of our brain storming sessions.

The in joke regarding these brain storming sessions is that our MD likes to do them at the gym, somewhere that Frank would rather not be.

We wanted to produce an app that would actually be useful for customers and that wasn’t “all about the sale”. The idea of being able to show your phone instead of printing off 4 or 5 page vouchers appealed to us, but as with most things in car rental getting car hire suppliers to agree and recognise the idea took almost 5 months!

The speed in which car rental embraces technology is a bit of a bug bear for Frank.

Yes, it is slightly frustrating when you see the speed in which other industries grasp new concepts to that of car rental. usrentacar.co.uk was the first to integrate customer reviews in to their result pages and the first to integrate the facebook like button.

So what about now, are you up to anything exciting at the moment?

Oh yes, I’ve got my hands very full at the moment with three major projects. I can only really talk about two of them though. The first is an update to the usrentacar iPhone app which we are hoping to release in the next month, the release will see a brand new feature which I’m very excited about. We very much see mobile as the future of car rental and want to be at the forefront of any advancement.

The second is the overdue redesign of usrentacar.co.uk. I’m pretty much at the planning stage at the moment. I’ve got a lot of new idea’s I’d like to implement and I’m also keen to remove some of the features we experimented within the last update, that have quite worked out.

The third?

Ha! The third is a brand new business, which I’m very excited about. Can’t tell you anything at the moment but we’re hoping to launch in beta at the end of this month….

So by all accounts some very exciting developments to come. You can download usrentacar.co.uk voucher app free of charge by clicking here.

regards,

James,