José Cortez

After finishing my business management course, I started my career as a financial auditor in one of the Big Four companies. After this experience I went through different projects, spending more time in the commercial area, both in more traditional companies and start-ups, until arriving at Guerin where I took over the Business Development department.

In this role it is important to monitor the rent-a-car market in specific, and mobility in general and, obviously, the entire world of innovation. Monitor trends, innovations, look for disruptive companies in the sector, and try to bring a lot of this knowledge to Guerin.

This ends up materializing in transformation projects across various areas, as is the case with self-service kiosks.

I have always been an enthusiast of the world of business, companies and innovation. When I was younger I was an early adopter of various technologies. Business development today assumes enormous importance in organizations that want to remain leaders. The world changes at such a speed that companies can only keep up if they have professionals focused on this area.

It is not an easy task at all, as developments are happening at a very high rate. There are several ways to keep up with trends. Through constant presence at events and conferences, whether in our sector or more general. Lots of reading websites, blogs, watching podcasts, etc. A lot of focus on start-ups that are being created related to our area, bringing new, simpler and more technological processes.

Over the years, Guerin has analyzed customer feedback and tried to understand what their biggest pain points were.

On the other hand, by monitoring trends in various sectors, we defined a digital transformation strategy. We think it is a very important step for the company's competitiveness.

We believe that Kiosk (self-service kiosks) greatly facilitates the rental process. Positive customer feedback, faster service and no waiting times validate our conviction.

The mobility of the future will be increasingly simple and available and we think this was a very important step in that direction. One of the awards we received was awarded by APDC, «Cities and Territories of the Future», there are no cities without mobility and what we believe is in simplifying access to mobility for everyone.

Implementing a new service from scratch is not easy and the challenges were diverse. We started by studying the traditional process at the counter very well, and with that we tried to recreate the customer experience. We created a multidisciplinary team with colleagues from the operation that allowed us to obtain a lot of knowledge on the ground.

There is a very close relationship between Business Development and the operations teams, which allows us to make small improvements (almost daily). The benefits are translated into customer service, which is now much faster, and also internally where the traditional receptionist role has evolved into a rent-a-car advisor.

PARTTEAM & OEMKIOSKS has a lot of notoriety and it is common to find the brand both on social networks and also in its own multimedia kiosks in different locations. I knew the brand very well. We got in touch and we always had good support.

I don't know specifically about mobility, but generally I believe that PARTTEAM & OEMKIOSKS will be part of many self-service solutions. I believe that most sectors with customer service are going in this direction.

For example, in restaurants, with both options, most people go directly to the self-service kiosks. When this is the case, the customer has more time to complete the process, not feeling pressured to decide or buy.

The advantage is, again, the improvement in the service we provide to our customers. The independent customer wants to understand all the particularities of their rental, and wants to view the service options that Guerin has. You don't want to feel pressured, in the end this translates into satisfied customers.

Right now my future is at Guerin and given my passion for the mobility area, I think that here I will continue to help simplify the customer experience, as there is still a long way to go.