Serving up success at TP Hire
27 March 2024
Adam Caulfield is a busy man. Since taking up his role as Managing Director of Hire with Travis Perkins at the beginning of January, he has been on a whistle-stop tour of the operation’s locations stretching from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands. I was able to catch up with him at a recently opened Travis Perkins hub location in Leeds and he’s clearly enjoying his new role, which he has settled into quickly.
“In a sense, TP Hire is one of the industry’s best-kept secrets,” Adam told me. “We have a tool hire presence at over 260 locations, which is more than any leading national hire group.
“However, our main focus is on the SME [small to medium enterprise] contractor and small builder, rather than Tier 1 organisations tackling large infrastructure projects, which reflects the core Travis Perkins merchant customer base.”
Adam has extensive operational and sales experience in the hire industry, having previously been National Sales Director with Sunbelt Rentals in the UK for three years. He has also held posts as Managing Director at Wolseley Infrastructure UK and Managing Director of HSS Hire Group.
Interestingly, however, Adam has a degree in Hotel & Catering Management and has worked with organisations like McDonald’s Coca-Cola and, during his studies, he had a year’s placement at Disney World in Florida, whose commitment to customer service is renowned.
“If you deliver great service today, you have to look at how you can do even better tomorrow and enhance the customer experience,” said Adam. “So my initial focus is on promoting our USPs. We have more branches than probably any other tool and equipment hirer, we have one of the youngest fleets and we have more than 700 colleagues within the TP Hire operation. We also have a significant number of apprentices within hire.
“Tradespeople and SMEs also like being able to hire from one branch and return equipment to another one. Contractors who often work away from base will load up with materials and tools at the start of a week and return the equipment to the site most convenient to them. We need to be flexible but customers appreciate this service.
“Most of the equipment in our hire fleet comprises hand-held tools and items that you can carry easily and load into a vehicle. However, we also offer mini excavators, compact dumpers and other machines that contractors building home extensions or landscaping gardens need, and we augment that with other equipment and services through our extensive rehire network.
“We probably have the largest fleet of micro and mini excavators of up to 1.5 tonnes in the industry.”
Adam sees opportunities to grow hire business opportunities from other Travis Perkins group businesses, such as the Toolstation tools and building supplies retailer, the BSS pipeline and heating products business, the Keyline civils operation, the Benchmarx kitchen and joinery specialist and the Staircraft activity.
“Currently around 1 in 5 Travis Perkins builders’ merchant customers already uses us to hire equipment and we intend to grow that proportion year on year,” said Adam. “We want them to get all the materials and equipment they need from us, with the excellent customer service they appreciate.”
Photo: Alan Guthrie
