Jan 2023

Newsletter

Welcome to our very first update of 2023 and we’d like to wish all of you a very Happy New Year and let’s hope it’s a brighter one ahead for us all.

Our teams have been on hand helping large numbers of our customers needing additional heating and lighting equipment to keep projects moving through the Winter. Thankfully January is bringing a milder climate.

It’s been a big team effort which reflects the theme of this year and from our team to you and yours, we would like to thank you for your continued support and also our team for helping us to provide the quality and service we are known for.

We’re looking forward to welcoming you back to our depots!

Fire forces Bristol depot move

If you follow our social feeds, you’ll have seen that our Christmas was not as calm as we’d hoped after a serious fire at our Days Road depot in Bristol from an exploding lithium-ion battery. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence and although unfortunate for us, is not a common issue.

We lost around 20% of our Bristol depot fleet in the fire, which was caused by thermal runway in a lithium-ion battery. This is a self-feeding situation where a faulty cell overheats and creates a domino effect. The increased temperature releases more energy which, in turn, creates more heat in other cells and spreads the fire exponentially. No batteries were on charge in the warehouse at the time.

From the millions of batteries of this kind in use, we were very unlucky for this to happen and is not something we could have predicted. We have made the video available on our LinkedIn account here to make other companies aware of the dangers and will share any more valuable insight as it becomes available.

Due to the damage, our brilliant and dedicated team relocated to our former premises in Little George St in Bristol, where we managed to open as planned on 3 January 2023 after the Christmas shutdown with minimal disruption to customers. This is something we are hugely proud of. If you have any questions or you need to get in touch with us, our contact details haven’t changed. We have a dedicated page on our website to keep customers updated of progress on the refurbishment works and we’ll be keeping our social channels updated to keep you informed of progress. For the majority of this year, we look forward to welcoming you to our new Bristol site and while we’ve kept disruption to an absolute minimum, please bear with us during this unexpected transition.

New Key Accounts Role for Nick Lewis

You may have noticed in our last newsletter that Nick Lewis, our Bath Area Sales Manager, has been promoted to manage our Key Accounts. Since joining the business in February 2021, Nick has proven himself time and time again on being an extremely effective account manager. His natural collaborative approach makes him a great customer advocate and company representative at the same time, and all with the same big happy smile on his face, no matter what his day presents him with!

Customers and colleagues will all tell that that Nick is an absolute pleasure to work with, and the step up to Key Account Manager is the next natural progression in his career.

The promotion will see Nick taking charge of the relationships with a number of our largest customers and continuing the excellent work he has been doing over the past two years. This involves listening to customer needs, ensuring we are providing the best possible service we are known for and introducing new products that help them to achieve their goals.

Nick’s promotion leaves a vacancy for a new Area Sales Manager that we will be recruiting for in the coming weeks and we are proud to have him on the team and wish him every success in the new role.

Nick Lewis, Key Account Manager

Fleet Focus – Keynsham Depot

We thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to some of our teams at Alide Hire and share more about what we do across our three sites.

Our Keynsham depot is the focus for this month headed by our Depot Manager, Steve Kay. Steve celebrated 25 years with us last year and is one of our most dedicated and longstanding team members.
Steve is supported by Assistant Manager, Matt James, our Workshop Supervisor, Martin Harris, another Alide veteran with 20 years service under his belt, and our Hire and Sales Controller, Aimee Hill.

The entire team are focused on going the extra mile for our customers which is why it’s such a popular depot. But rather than hear it from us, we asked Steve and Marty what makes the Keynsham depot so popular..

Q: Why do you enjoy working at the Keynsham office and what’s special about it?
Martin: Every day is different. A brilliant bonded team to work with and I’ve been here over 20 years!
Steve: I have a great team around me and it’s our flagship depot. I’ve been here over a quarter of a century!

What’s the strangest request you’ve ever had from a customer?
Steve: “How long does it take to dig a hole?” From an excavator hire request!
Martin: “I can’t get my digger started!” From a customer putting the key into a lock by his feet!

What makes Alide Hire different from other hire companies in the region?
Steve: As an independent, we have a much more personal relationship with our customers. We get to know them by name and how we can help and it makes a huge difference.
Martin: Customers are our first priority. We’re on site to answer any queries, solve any issues and make sure they have everything they need. It’s not easy to find customer service like that these days.

So now you’ve been introduced, the team at Keynsham are looking forward to seeing you at our depot in the near future!

Clockwise from top left, Aimee, Matt, Martin and Steve, our Keynsham dream team.

New Kit News! – Tigerbite Available from January 2023

Last month we introduced you to a new product in the Alide fleet. We are pleased and excited to bring Tigerbite to our product range this year. With reduction of recycling a high priority for all, the Tigerbite Mini-Crusher is a compact crusher with the power to crush 6-8 tonnes of building waste, such as concrete, brick, slabs, blocks and rubble down to just 25ml. Many customers then re-use this as sub-base rather than pay for waste removal. Those who do pay for it are improving skip-fill rates threefold. Customer benefits include:

• Reduction of removal and recycling costs
• Time saved on project
• Avoid additional labour costs
• Trim manual labour tasks and injury risks
• Ability to provide more competitive quotes.

You can see Tigerbite in action here and get in touch with us if you need any further help. Don’t forget to follow our social channels on Facebook, Twitter, Insta and LinkedIn, for regular updates of all new arrivals to the fleet.

You’ll know from everything we do that quality and service are paramount so do let us know if there is anything we can do to make your hiring and buying experience easier.

That’s it for the start of 2023! We’ve got lots of plans and news we’re looking forward to sharing with you throughout the year, along with the updates on our Bristol rebuild, so watch this space!

Until next month!

Best wishes

James Mulrooney
Sales Director