In our last blog, we talked about how your dealership can respond to the latest SMMT guidelines surrounding social distancing by offering unaccompanied test drives. We discussed how you can do this by implementing an online booking system to arrange test drives remotely.
The topic of this post in the series is driving licence validation. Like test drives themselves, driving licence checks are something many dealerships will need to review and adapt in light of new SMMT guidelines on social distancing. Here’s how to ensure driving licence validation is a seamless part of your contactless sales process.
Driving license validation
For dealerships offering unaccompanied test drives, it’s essential to have security measures in place to provide peace of mind that the customer is legally allowed and fully insured to drive your vehicle.
You need to make sure you know your customer before you trust them with your asset. This means:
- Engaging with them over the phone
- Checking their license in compliance with the DVLA
- Storing photographic evidence of their driving licence
- Validating any additional drivers if the customer will involve family members in the decision making process
- Ensuring compliance with the relevant insurance criteria
It’s crucial to validate all customers’ driving licences in compliance with the DVLA, as you’ll need to know that they have the correct licence and don’t have any endorsements that could invalidate your insurance.
There are a number of ways in which you can validate a driver’s licence, but the easiest way is to do it through a system that can check against a fixed set of criteria to ensure the customer is able to drive your vehicle.
How can AX help?
In the video below, find out how AX Manage can help you protect yourself in real time, thanks to our DVLA licence checker.
If you are running unaccompanied test drives, there is a natural need for security and peace of mind that the customer currently in your vehicle is legally allowed and fully insured to be using it.
Doing this compliantly with the DVLA is crucial. You need to know that they have the correct license and have no endorsements that would invalidate your insurance. The done method for this historically is via telephone to the DVLA, however this has pitfalls.
By far the easiest way is direct from a system which will check against a fixed set of criteria and simply come back with a decision, yes the customer is good to go, or a no, they are ineligible.
Whatever your method for test drives, DVLA checks should be right at the top of your list.
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