South Florida-headquartered A1A Limo has opened its first three fleet and area franchises outside the state, located in Washington, D.C.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Salt Lake City, owner Rick Versace announced this week at the Global Business Travel Association convention in Dallas.
“As the area franchise, they can do the exact same things we do,” said Versace, who also is treasurer of the National Limousine Association. “They’ll do all the back-office stuff and start selling franchises to their individual chauffeurs in those locations.”
Versace said the benefits to corporate clients are twofold. The first is standardization and uniformity. “They’ll get the high level of service with duty-of-care components,” he said. “We built SharePoint sites for each of our call centers, sales and operations. We just signed a new account with a certain client with certain protocols, and every franchisee sees that automatically.”
The second benefit Versace mentioned is cost savings. “If I’m using a company in a different city, I ask for his best rate and he might or might not give it to me,” he said. “Then I’m going to mark it up as a percentage and give it to the client. Once you’re part of the franchise family, we don’t have to do that because we’re really all the same company, so the savings will be pretty substantial.”
