ACE Rent A Van expand their reach and reputation with Google My Business
- Improve visibility to ensure new customers find rental services.
- Demonstrate business credentials and show they are as professional as large rivals.
- Build a strong local reputation, to reflect focus on trust and community.
- Create a Google My Business profile to ramp up visibility.
- Add relevant posts and pictures of their impressive fleet of vans and facilities.
- Encouraged customers to share their experience via reviews and ratings.
- 49% increase in organic traffic over 12 months
- 624 customer enquiries per month generated by GMB
- 148 customer reviews
When we started using Google Ads and Google My Business in 2016, things went from strength to strength. In the three years since then, we have really grown from a small business to a medium business.
– Louis Verrico, Director, ACE Rent A Van
About the company
Automotive
business
148
customer reviews
4.9
star-rating
About the goals
The success of ACE Rent A Van is firmly rooted in the local community. The family business started out as a car dealership in New Cross in 1954 before branching into van rental in response to local demand. More recently, Louis used Google Maps to identify nearby yards with unused space and present local business owners with the opportunity to rent it to ACE as van storage.
However, continued success inspired Louis to expand further afield, opening a new branch in Croydon. This forced ACE to consider how to take a hard-earned local reputation to a new area. To truly establish themselves, they needed to boost their visibility and attract new customers.
Approach
As Louis puts it, “Google is the customer’s first port of call”. So he knew it was the right place to improve visibility. After partnering with digital specialists Add People, ACE Rent A Van created Google My Business (GMB) profiles for their New Cross and Croydon branches. The pages were populated with a clear and accurate business description, their location, contact information and opening hours. All of this appears on Google Maps searches, allowing customers to quickly discover and contact the company.
Projecting a professional image was the next step for Louis and ACE. As he says, “The fact you can customise what a customer’s going to look at when they first see your company means you can look far more professional than other businesses.” To do this, the GMB profile pictures were updated with images of their impressive fleet of new vans and fresh facilities. Relevant posts were also added to show that they’re “switched on and know what they’re doing”.
The third step was to encourage customers to share their experience. After each hire, customers were sent a text message asking them to review ACE, alongside a link to their Google My Business page. In the event of negative or average reviews an ACE representative would get in touch to understand where their service fell short. The aim was to make customers feel valued and supported, and to help ACE improve their service.
Google My Business
A product that lets you create and manage free business listings in Google Maps so that people can see your business when doing a local search. Google My Business allows you to create and verify your local business on Google, so your business information can be shown in Google Maps.
Learn moreResults
ACE Rent A Van has been using Google My Business for over a year and already they receive an average of 624 phone and email enquiries per month from their profiles. The website has also seen a 49% increase in organic traffic over the past 12 months.
ACE now has a notable reputation through customer reviews too. At the time of writing, the Google My Business page for their New Cross branch had 148 reviews and a 4.7-star rating. The newer Croydon branch had 48 reviews and a rating of 4.9. These numbers exceed those of a national competitor operating in the area, both in terms of the number of reviews and their ratings.
Louis has cited several instances where he was able to contact customers who left average or dissatisfied reviews. In many cases, these customers returned specifically because of the communication and subsequently changed their review to a 5-star rating. This has also helped the business improve their procedures in line with customer feedback.
The company’s successes have inspired Louis to target continued expansion for ACE Rent A Van. Together with their partners at Add People, they’re aiming for at least 50% growth in organic traffic again this year. They plan to compete with national competitors to become the biggest van rental firm in London.