Legal & Reliable, 100% Guaranteed - How?

We guarantee your travel with us is safe and comfortable, guaranteeing we are legal and reliable - we do the waiting so our clients do not!

This is the third and final in a mini series about our guarantees - we guarantee that we are legal and reliable, so what’s included in this?

Let’s talk about being legal first and in what ways our executive chauffeur service stays within the law.

Yes, this really is what we aim to do, which not only applies to the way we deliver a drive as well as the way we operate the business. 

Legal

Licensing and Insurance 

We naturally have the relevant licenses for providing vehicle hire which includes an operating license for the business, private vehicle hire license for the car and finally the private hire driver’s license for the executive chauffeurs.

Without any of these licenses that are issued by Wiltshire Council, we are unable to provide our executive chauffeur services for airports, events or special occasions whether for business or pleasure. Thankfully we have an exception certificate meaning that we do not need to have these signs displayed on our vehicle, and neither do I need to have my personal licenses on display. We do however, have to have these available should we be asked to present them any time.

Each of the licenses must be renewed regularly meaning that the necessary tests have to be undergone.

Our licensed Jaguar XFS must have an MOT every 6 months to remain licensed and any damage done to the car is required to be repaired without delay.

Of course, we have all the relevant insurances, including the household upgrade to enable us to welcome clients into our home office when necessary. This is sometimes required when wedding couples or those looking to hire us for proms, want to meet us and the cars in advance.

Driving legally 

Our aim is to build the business with strong ethics and integrity based upon our core values. So naturally, we ensure all our chauffeurs, whether for our wedding car service or for our executive travel service, operate within the law and adhere to UK driving laws.

Speed Limits 

This includes the way we drive to the speed limit when it is safe to do so, and we aim to make sure we do not exceed that limit. Quite simply, this gives our clients peace of mind and helps to provide a stress free journey, helped by also keeping an appropriate distance form the vehicles in front.

Mobiles & Smoking

Continually, even these days, I see other providers on their mobile phones whilst driving with or without a passenger onboard. All our chauffeurs have their phones on silent, out of sight and disconnected from the car, so they are not used in any way while clients are onboard.

In addition, I notice other drivers smoking inside their licensed vehicle, albeit with the window down and without a passenger. For a licensed car, smoking in the car is illegal.

We provide our executive chauffeur and wedding car chauffeur services that stay within the law in every way, which provides our clients with comfortable travel knowing that we are not distracted by phone calls. Our drivers do not smoke anywhere near our cars which means that all our passengers can travel without feeling uncomfortable.

Staying alert

It has been said to me by other people, although thankfully this has not been my experience, that they have travelled with other providers who were struggling to stay awake when driving at night. Whilst I feel for both the drivers and their passengers under these circumstances, our pledge and guarantee for our clients includes that we drive safely, which means that our drivers must be ‘fit to drive’.

When we take on bookings, we consider the travel that is already booked with the same chauffeur and ensure in advance, that enough rest time is allowed before we take on the booking.

Highway Code & Qualifications

Each of our chauffeurs have a strong knowledge of the UK Highway Code and the minimum requirement for being a chauffeur for us, is that they must be qualified advanced drivers with IAM RoadSmart.

For our licensed travel service, our executive chauffeurs must also have been qualified at Master level with IAM RoadSmart. 

Reliability

So, how is this achieved with our executive chauffeur and wedding car service?

Contingency time

When we plan our route and timing to arrive for a client wherever they are, we allow time to clean and wax the car before we greet them. For airports, we plan to arrive and park before the plane has landed, knowing the client needs to go through security and often baggage reclaim. This gives us contingency timing just in case.

Trial Drives

For weddings the assigned chauffeur will conduct a trial drive of the route that is planned the week before the wedding. This gives us a good feel for the timing and ensures that we are fully aware of the various locations where we are picking up people and taking them.

For weddings, we also travel to what we have defined, as the previously identified ‘pre-location’ site, which allows the chauffeur to fully detail wax the car within a short distance from the first pick up point.

Our guarantees do not include an immaculately waxed Jaguar, although that is always our aim, so if traffic delays happen, then this is the time that is used up, instead of being late for our clients.

SMS Messages

An essential part of our planning, are the SMS messages we send around 2 days prior to meeting our clients for executive travel. These messages allow us to confirm the details of where we are picking them up from and taking them, including any flight information. This gives peace of mind to our clients so they know they have not been forgotten.

Also when we are at the Airport Arrivals, they receive another SMS from us, saying we are there for them along with an offer of hot drinks.

Our whole service is about providing stress free travel and peace of mind. There are many other aspects to our full service which we would be only too pleased to discuss with anyone who would like to contact us.

Executive Travel: info@dbexecutivetravel.net or call 07850 100859

Wedding Cars: info@dbweddingcars.net or call 07548 931339

Comfort Guaranteed - Who says?

I have often been asked, why Jaguar?

Why not Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Volvo or perhaps a Tesla? Why not? The list is endless, but to answer this obvious question I need to go back to our roots first of all.

While I was working for other companies, as a family we needed cars that were spacious and comfortable - the latter due to health reasons, as we were not getting any younger!

From my earlier articles on our website and LinkedIn, you will find that the years before we chose Jaguar we drove Vauxhalls, specifically the Carlton and lately the Omega. When production of the Omega ended, we then had to look to other brands for the large comfortable alternative. 

It was then that after test driving many other brands and models, that we drove our first Jaguar, albeit the smallest, an X Type that we were sold. Yes, that then led to the S Type, which we still have that is now only used for weddings, to our the current licensed car our XFS, as well as the family X Type Estate. 

You only need to read through our dozens of 5 star reviews including currently over 60 on google to find that our clients love the S Type and XFS too and find them so comfortable. 

Our social media posts refer to them both as our big cats! Using the links on our website, why not connect up and follow us on our travels?

But comfort is not only about the cars we drive, and we plan to stay with the Jaguar brand as we expand, it is also about the way the cars are driven and how we look after our clients. 

Some point soon, we will need to consider alternative fuels, so we are already keeping an eye open for electric cars that have a range of around 700 miles, which is what we consistently get out of our big cat, the XFS!

Back to our subject……….

How we appear

To quote a celebrity “Oh what a beautiful car and you are dressed so smartly. I know I will looked after and kept safe’, our aim is to ensure that from the first time clients see us, they feel comfortable and at ease. 

So we arrive in not only a clean suit and chauffeur’s cap, but we also ensure our car is looking at her best - outside as well as inside.

None of our chauffeurs smoke or use bad language which ensures no offence is caused to some of our clients who do neither of these things.

During the drive, we do not start a conversation, and only engage in a discussion should our clients initiate it. We do not ask questions during the conversation, so it is easy for clients to close the discussion down when they like. We respect our clients time and space.

Are you sitting comfortably?

When clients are onboard, we check the air con is to their preference and do not open our window. Of course, should a client wish to open a window, then they are at liberty to do this. En route at regular periods, we will also check that the air con is still to their liking.

When we have 2 or more passengers with us, before we meet and greet, we adjust the drivers seating position as far forward as is safe to drive - this maximises the leg room for clients behind us, even though the cars are already spacious.

We provide for our passengers cooled mineral water, snack bars, tissues, sanitised hand wipes, eye mask, branded mints, as well as a daily newspaper of their choice and 4 quality magazines for browsing. 

When collecting from Airport/Seaport Arrivals, we offer a hot drink of their choice and assist with luggage. For longer journeys we also provide hot drinks from the service areas.

When arriving at the car, we first open the car doors and invite our clients to take their seats and while they are getting comfortable, our chauffeurs load the luggage into the boot and if appropriate the top box. 

We also offer a charging cable for their mobile phones - we have cables for the top 3 mobiles in UK.

During longer journeys we will check at regular intervals, whether they would like to stop at the services. If not then we continue, providing we are still safe to drive, ensuring that we always stay alert. 

Road Rage

I have written many posts and articles about IAM Roadsmart Advanced and Masters qualifications, but I also need to mention here that before I drove in this way, many years ago I was guilty of throwing my passengers around, mostly family. 

The facts are that I used to drive too fast and too close to those in front of me, swerving sharply to avoid incidents that in the past, I could have planned better for.

Quite simply although I would not admit it at the time, I was a careless driver and it took a few accidents and the patient comments from my wife, that persuaded me to slow down and take corners carefully. 

Fast forward to today

Now each of our chauffeurs drive to maximise our passengers stress free experience and peace of mind which includes, driving at a speed that is appropriate to the road conditions and level of traffic, ensuring that we can slow down gradually when we see a hazard up ahead. 

When we change lanes, we signal to others what our intentions are - this also gives peace of mind to our clients so that they know the lane change is deliberate. 

We increase our speed including from a stationary position gradually - again so as to 

not cause alarm. 

When we notice driving standards of other road users are poor, we do not make any gestures or comments about them, realising that this in itself could make our clients anxious. 

Our mobiles phone are both set to silent mode and disconnected from the car. In addition, we will not make any calls when a client is onboard and of course, we do not respond to any either. Our phone is out of sight.

We only put the sound system on when our clients ask us, realising that some clients find the time useful for working, planning or making business phone calls and not having to ask us to turn the radio off makes it easier for them.

When driving, we do not drink or eat anything - the aim is to make sure we are looking ahead at all times, checking mirrors and doing a 180 degree scan of the environment around us, ensuring we are always checking for hazards.

All the above helps to make our clients feel comfortable and at ease.

Next Up

The next article will be written about how we guarantee that we are legal and why should that concern our clients.

I hope you are finding this mini series of interest and to some degree, educational and look forward to hearing from you for your travel requirements whether for business or pleasure. 

We can be easily reached on 07850 100859 or info@dbexecutivetravel.net and for our wedding car services on 07548 931339 or info@dbweddingcars.net.