Let customers collect and return a vehicle on their own

Introduction

Self-service lets a customer pick up and bring back a vehicle when nobody is at the desk. The customer works through the rental on their phone: they read your instructions, photograph the car, and press a button. If the car has a tracking box fitted, RentVisie then unlocks it at pickup and locks it again at return. The booking moves to Picked up and later Dropped off without anyone at the desk touching it.

Everything you set up for this sits on one screen: from the main menu open Admin, then Self service. The screen is headed Self service, with a Back link above it and five tiles below: Onboarding, Feedback, FAQs, Asset instructions and Settings. The day-to-day part happens on each booking, on its Self service tab.

You would be here because:

• you want a customer to collect a van on Friday evening after you have closed;
• a new car has a tracker fitted and should now be available for self-service;
• customers keep phoning to ask where the spare key or the charging cable is — the instructions the app shows them need another step;
• you want to see what customers think of how clean the cars are;
• a booking says Auto accepted pickup and you want to know why.

Words this screen uses

Every way a customer can collect or return without staff

Use this page to set self-service up and to follow a self-service booking. When a customer phones because a return will not go through, go straight to Help a customer whose self-service return is refused.

How to use

Configuration

Skim the table once; each row is explained in the numbered parts below it.

1. The company switch. Allow self service sits at the bottom of the screen that opens from Admin → Company details. It shows Yes or No and you cannot change it there; RentVisie support sets it. It controls one thing only: automatic pickup (see Using self-service below). With No, customers can still use the app and the link, but a booking is never marked picked up by itself. See Check your company record, plan and limits.

2. Mark a vehicle as self-service.

1. From the main menu click Assets, then the Assets tile, and open the vehicle.
2. Click the Web & Images tab.
3. Set Self service to Yes.
4. Click Save, at the bottom.

The switch is read at the moment of pickup or return, so bookings already made for this car follow the new setting too. For the car to unlock and lock by itself it also needs a tracker linked to it; see Link a tracker to a vehicle and follow it on the map. Set Self service back to No to take the vehicle out of self-service.

3. Required photos. Open Admin → Self service → Settings. The screen is headed Self service settings, with Changes will be auto-saved. under it and one tab, Photos.

"Photograph the car" means four photos: Front, Back, Left and Right. There is no per-side choice — it is all four or none. Each click saves straight away; there is no Save button. The rule applies to every self-service vehicle in your company.

Both boxes show Yes the first time you open this screen, but nothing is required yet. The setting only exists once something on it has been changed. To switch photos on, click No and then Yes again on each line you want.

4. Vehicle instructions. These are the numbered steps the customer sees in the app — where the key is, how to start an electric van, where to plug it in.

1. Open Admin → Self service → Asset instructions. A list opens with the columns Name and Checkin type.
2. Click New. The screen headed Self service asset instruction opens.
3. Fill in Name (for yourself, for example Renault Master pickup) and choose Inspection type: Checkout for pickup, Checkin for return. NotApplicable is never shown to a customer.
4. In Assets, pick the vehicles by registration number. Only active vehicles are listed.
5. Click New above the steps list. A popup opens. Fill in Step (a whole number — 1, 2, 3 — which is the step's number), Title, and Description (up to 2,000 characters, formatting included). On the right, upload one picture and give it a Name. Click Save.
6. Repeat for each step, then click Save at the bottom of the instruction.

Use the pencil icon on a row to change an instruction or a step, and the bin icon to delete it. A vehicle needs one instruction for pickup and one for return; each can be shared by many vehicles.

5. Welcome screens (onboarding). Open Admin → Self service → Onboarding. The screen is headed Onboarding self service.

1. Set Use custom onboarding to Yes.
2. Click New. On Image onboarding, upload the picture, and choose Attribute: Mobile, Tablet or Desktop — the kind of screen the picture is made for. Set Order (1 is shown first) and Name, then click Save.
3. Add one picture per screen, per screen type.
4. Click Save at the bottom of Onboarding self service. The switch is only kept once you do.

With No, your pictures are kept but the app does not show them. To change or remove a picture, select it and click Edit or Delete.

6. Questions and answers. The FAQs tile opens the same list as the website FAQ. The self-service app shows every category of type SelfService; see Add questions and answers to your website FAQ.

7. Checking returns yourself. Whether a self-service return counts as finished at once, or waits for you, is set with Self service manual inspection control; see Help a customer whose self-service return is refused.

Before you start: Admin → Self service, every tile on it, and the vehicle's Self service switch need a Company admin account; an Employee account sees the switch but cannot change it. Sending a self-service link from a booking needs an Employee or Company admin account. Allow self service and the tracker connection are set by RentVisie support. The customer's email only carries a working link if your Customer Selfservice Link email template contains it — see Set up the emails the app sends by itself.

Using self-service

Open the booking (from the main menu open Bookings and click the booking's row). Below the first row of tabs is a second row of rounded tabs; click Self service.

The tab shows Security pin (read-only), Auto checkout (a date and time), Auto process status, the button Customer self service link, and under Customer photo uploads the photos the customer has taken, each with its side.

1. Send the link. Click Customer self service link. The app says Email sent. The customer receives the self-service email with their personal link.
2. Check the automatic pickup time. If Auto checkout was empty, it is now one hour from when you clicked, and Auto process status is Pending. Change Auto checkout if the customer comes later; it saves as soon as you leave the box.
3. Stop an automatic pickup by setting Auto process status to Skipped. Only Pending bookings are picked up automatically. Clicking Customer self service link again sets it back to Pending.
4. After pickup, look at the photos under Customer photo uploads. Filter by side or date with the boxes above them.

What happens when the customer presses the pickup button in the app. RentVisie checks, in this order, and stops at the first that fails:

When all pass, RentVisie reads mileage and fuel from the tracker, unlocks the doors and the engine, sets the booking to Picked up and emails the pickup receipt.

Automatic pickup. Once an hour, on the hour, RentVisie looks for Pending bookings whose Auto checkout time has passed — only if Allow self service is Yes. Each one becomes Picked up with the pickup notes Auto accepted pickup, the last known mileage, fuel at 100, and a pickup receipt emailed. Nothing is checked and nothing unlocks.

Cleanliness ratings. Open Admin → Self service → Feedback. The screen headed Feedback self service lists every rating: Booking, Date, Type (Checkout — given at pickup, Checkin — at return), a hidden Name column, the score, and Remarks. The pencil opens the rating with a Booking #… link; the bin deletes it.

A worked example

Booking 10452, a Renault Master, pickup Friday 18:00, drop-off Monday 09:00. Rent €245.00 plus a €300.00 deposit: €545.00. The van is set to Self service, both photo lines are Yes, and it has a Traci tracker.

• At 10:20 you click Customer self service link. Auto checkout becomes 10:20 + 1 hour = 11:20. You change it to Friday 19:00, in case the customer is late.
• At 17:40 the customer tries: 20 minutes early — Checkout not within allowed time period. At 17:46 (14 minutes early) that check passes.
• They have paid €544.96: 4 cents open, which is within €0.05, so it passes. Had they paid €544.90, the 10 cents open would stop them.
• They photograph the front, back and left side and press again: Not all required images have been taken. They add the right side; the van unlocks. The booking is Picked up.
• Had they never come, the booking would have been picked up automatically at the 19:00 hourly check, with fuel 100 and no photos.

Key details

The vehicle switch decides which checks run. With Self service on No, the app still lets the customer finish on payment and time alone, but it asks for no photos, does not unlock the car at pickup and does not lock it at return. The customer then needs a key some other way — a key box, for example.

The photo rule and the instructions are separate. Photos are company-wide; instructions are per vehicle. A vehicle with no instruction for pickup simply shows none.

The link and the app are not the same thing. The link in the email lets the customer do the inspection — photos, mileage and fuel, damage, signatures — and finish it. It does not check payment and does not unlock anything.

Nothing acts on a cleanliness score. A low score does not mark the car dirty or alert anyone. It is there for you to read.

What to do next: after a self-service pickup, look at the photos on the Self service tab first — they are your only record of the car's state. At return, follow the booking as on Take a vehicle back at the end of a rental, and check the fuel before you invoice.

Q&A

Why does a booking say "Auto accepted pickup" with fuel at 100 and nobody saw the car? It was picked up automatically after the self-service link was sent and the customer did not finish it before Auto checkout. The mileage and fuel are assumed, not read. Take real readings at return, as on Record mileage and fuel readings.

Why was a customer never asked for photos, although Settings shows Yes? Either the photo setting was never actually saved — click No and then Yes on the Settings tile — or the vehicle's Self service switch is No.

A customer says the app shows "Self service not supported". What is wrong? The vehicle's Self service switch is No. A Company admin sets it to Yes on the Web & Images tab.

Why does the customer see the wrong instructions for a car? The car is in two instructions of the same type, and the app shows only one of them. Open Asset instructions and remove the car from one of them.

Why did the pickup not happen automatically at the time on the booking? Automatic pickup runs once an hour, on the hour, so it can be up to an hour late. It also never happens when Auto process status is not Pending, or when Allow self service is No — for that, contact RentVisie support.

Why can I not see Admin → Self service? It is only shown to a Company admin account. Ask your administrator; see Add an employee and set their permissions.

Can I unlock a car from the desk for a customer who is stuck? No. Only the customer's app sends lock and unlock instructions. Take the vehicle back or hand it over yourself, as on Run the pickup inspection, and get the key to the customer by hand or through a key box.

Where are the other feedback answers customers give? The cleanliness scores are only on the Feedback tile here. Feedback from the email sent after a rental is on Check customer feedback after a rental.