Keyless entry is no longer a myth, Europcar car rental Service Company have introduced ToMyCar to allow its customers to hire a car from their fingertips. With so m any car rental places available in the UK, it is important for Europcar to stay ahead of its competitors by finding new and innovative ways of making their customers’ life easier. When it comes to traveling as a business user, it can save so much time being able to arrive, walk to the car, fire up an app on your smart phone to unlock your car and off you go.
ToMyCar is available to iOS and Android users for now, so Windows or Blackberry users will have to wait a little while for its availability. The most important thing to get right here is to make it seamless and ensure it works, and any possible issues prepared for. When this was introduced me, I started thinking about my smartphone’s battery life and data connectivity, the two main ingredients at work. Europcar kindly provides an in-car charger to keep my smartphone topped up and a MiFi device with unlimited data, so I don’t have to use my data or worry about connectivity.
The app communicates with the Volkswagen Golf provided using Bluetooth and a Keyzee box and pairing was easy. Within five minutes I was ready to go, let’s take a look at the app:
ToMyCar App Features:
The first time you setup your app, you can enter all the information required about your rental and then go on to log any damages to the car and even take pictures as evidence so that you don’t incur any charges for damages that aren’t your fault. Once this is done, you are presented with a very simple interface that allows you to lock and unlock your vehicle. Below the immobiliser buttons is where you can activate your rental and even with you sat in the car, your rental will only start and end when you click the button. This will then notify the company of your rental status.
The app can run in the background and you are free to deactivate your Bluetooth connectivity once finished but will need to activate again when you need to lock or unlock your vehicle. Although Europcar stated that the app is also able to show you the location of your car when picking it up, I didn’t get to try this feature, but I can imagine it makes it easier to handle the whole process all by yourself without any assistance from the Europcar staff.
The process is seamless and with no log when locking/unlocking your vehicle, you have nothing to worry about. Simple locate your car, open the door, start rental and move off. It was a refreshing experience and it’s one I would definitely recommend especially if you are a frequent flyer.
It would be great to see Europcar extend this feature to give your more information at your fingertips such as fuel remaining, distance covered while you rented and any other charges, should you go over your agreed rental limit, however that is just picking at the not so important things. Also ensure you have done the initial registration so you are all set when you get to your car.
Want to find out more about ToMyCar, click here. Join the conversation below or over on Twitter.
