Thame Cars behind the scenes: Working during a pandemic

“I never found buying a car so easy and all in the grip of COVID-19”

This was a quote from Mr Tyler, one of our customers, and it really highlights the hard work the team has put in to keep living our values of safe, simple and convenient.

As with every other business and industry, Thame Cars have had to make huge changes to the way we operate. With a percentage of our workforce still furloughed and myriad social distancing measures now mandatory, the pressure is on to keep serving our customers to our incredibly high standards.

Today we’re going to go ‘behind the scenes’ and take a look at what it’s like to live and work in the Automotive Industry.

Although the government has given the go-ahead for businesses to return to work, the advice is to continue working from home wherever possible. As you can imagine, it’s a bit tricky changing a gearbox over Zoom! The majority of roles within our business require on-site presence.

One of the biggest and most successful innovations in our business has been Online Buying, which Mr Tyler was such a fan of. Minimising contact and maximising safety has been our priority, but still ensuring that our customers have the opportunity and time to make the best decision for their needs.

For our team, it has meant a change in their working practices as more time is now spent delivering and collecting vehicles, and also taking our customers through the paperwork.

This has been a crunch point for us, as we strive to find the balance between safety, service and efficiency.

Some of our team were understandably nervous about returning to work, so we have paid just as much attention to ensuring that they feel safe as well. Thanks to a comprehensive training program, reduced numbers on site, personal safety equipment and numerous other measures in the business, everybody has settled into the ‘new normal’ and found their routine.

Payments are all taken over the phone, our service department collect and deliver ‘touch free’ with no customer interaction, and all vehicle hires are done in the same way. As you would expect, everything is fully sanitised following a rigorous process to ensure that every possible touch point surface is clean.

The government are urging people to avoid public transport where possible which means more cars on the road, which in turn means an increased need for servicing, tyres, hiring and new vehicles.

Thame Cars are thrilled to be playing a small part in keeping local motorists on the road, and we will continue to innovate and adapt to meet the needs of the community.