Wheels, Inc. Driving Customer Experience Using Inquisite Survey Solution

AUSTIN, Texas, March 17 -- Wheels, Inc., one of the largest full-service U.S. fleet management companies, has begun using web-survey technology from Inquisite to gauge the quality of service its customers receive through the company's national network of authorized automotive repair and maintenance facilities.

The Internet has long been a key business ingredient for Wheels, a Des Plaines, Ill.-based provider of end-to-end fleet management solutions for more than 450 customers in the corporate, government and service sectors. One of the nation's largest privately held companies, with annual revenues of more than $1.5 billion, Wheels manages the lifecycle of fleet vehicles, from acquisition and operations to maintenance and remarketing.

In July 2002, Wheels began using Inquisite, an automated web-based survey solution, to poll drivers who have been involved in accidents or who require routine maintenance about the quality of service they are receiving at the more than 90,000 facilities in the company's authorized service network. Inquisite is an enterprise-class survey package that allows users to create, deploy and manage professional-looking surveys in minutes right from the desktop and deploy them to the web. Using Inquisite, drivers are asked by Wheels to rate the quality of service for all aspects of the repair process -- everything from the knowledge and responsiveness of the shop personnel to the speed and quality of the repairs to their vehicle. Drivers also are given the opportunity to recommend whether vendor locations should remain within the service network.

"When we send someone to a repair facility, we can't directly control the quality of service they receive. The results from Inquisite are providing us with unique insight into the factors that drive the satisfaction of our end users, and the speed of this feedback provides an edge when managing our vendor network," said Joseph Gnorski, Wheels' marketing analyst. "Inquisite is allowing Wheels to really examine how well our partner repair facilities are performing in terms of quality, service, price and speed."

Prior to Inquisite's implementation in June 2002, Wheels was using paper surveys to poll drivers on the firm's various customer-service initiatives -- a process that could take eight weeks from end to end. These surveys serve as the source of benchmarking data used to identify areas needing improvement in fleet operations. Gnorski, who oversees all of the company's market research activities, said Inquisite is helping Wheels shave that process down to just two weeks, since he no longer has to contend with the costly and time- consuming aspects of conventional survey deployment, such as customization, design, printing, postage and manual data entry. Wheels conducts between 25 and 50 customer surveys annually.

After conducting just a few surveys using Inquisite, Gnorski quickly recognized that the solution could be used to conduct internal research as well. In September 2002, he and Wheels' Human Resources personnel began using Inquisite to monitor employee satisfaction levels and, in January 2003, surveys were being developed to determine the level of familiarity among Wheels' sales force about the company's numerous product and service offerings.

As customer buying cycles accelerate, traditional methods of capturing the "voice of the customer" are becoming increasingly inadequate. According to a recent study by the Boston-based analyst firm Aberdeen Group, companies offering web-centric solutions for capturing customer attitudinal information are allowing companies to incorporate continuous information about customer's opinions into their ongoing business processes to optimize marketing decisions, speed product development and better manage the customer experience.

"When you build your reputation on your ability to make each customer feel as if he or she is the only one you have, solutions like Inquisite enable you to quickly and accurately assess the value of your programs, services and personnel, and thereby increase customer satisfaction and loyalty," Gnorski said. "Inquisite has proven to be the end-all, be-all tool for us to make better-informed business decisions."

About Wheels, Inc.

Wheels, Inc., which pioneered the concept of auto leasing in 1939, provides a full range of specialized services to help corporations manage their vehicle fleets. Wheels has 550 employees, leases more than 195,000 vehicles and manages more than 240,000 vehicles. Its holding company, Frank Consolidated Enterprises, currently ranks as one of the largest private companies in the United States, with more than $1 billion in annual sales. For more information, visit www.wheels.com.

About Inquisite

Inquisite, a division of Catapult Systems Corp., is a leading provider of web survey technology and services. Inquisite helps the business user collect, analyze and report strategic information across a broad range of organizational disciplines. Inquisite's robust features empower managers to make better decisions, while its ease of use promotes enterprise-wide installation and training, resulting in superior ROI and competitive leverage. Many of the world's leading organizations use Inquisite for their mission- critical B2B, B2C and B2E evaluation and feedback initiatives. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Inquisite's customer base includes industry leaders in the customer satisfaction, education, financial services, healthcare, human resources, government, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and retail sectors. For more information, visit www.inquisite.com.