"This development will be a two-way arrangement," informed Louis King, Managing Director, ACR Euro Assistance Spain to Fleet's Editor Jarlath Sweeney on a recent visit to the ACR Headquarters in Denia near Valencia on the Spanish East Coast. "While appointing agents to carry out break-down assistance for commercial vehicles, trailers and buses/coaches, this high level of service will be made available to Irish customers throughout Mainland Europe" he added.

Louis, born in Gibraltar grew up in the UK and moved to Spain over 20 years ago. Having spent some time as a trans-continental truck driver he got to know 'the workings of life on the road', pretty quickly. His career progression saw him set up a Parts business, sourcing supply from the US Eastern block countries and Asia for trailer manufacturers and refrigeration specialists. This led to consultancy contracts for transport companies, bus and coachbuilders, as well as commercial vehicle manufacturers as he was in a position to advise on the right specification required for various transport requirements. The name of the company still remains as ACR, which stands for Accessories, Components and the Spanish word for spares "recambios".

Thirteen years ago, Louis established Euro Assistance Spain and within the first 12 months had set up 70 Service Agents. Today, there are over 3000 throughout Europe. "ACR has an obligation to offer its customers the best professional assistance, with competent, efficient and rapid attention 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," stated Louis. "ACR guarantees a highly specialised and qualified personnel basing its competitiveness in the quality and great care of the services offered to its clients," he added. "If the vehicle cannot be repaired on the spot, we will arrange all of the necessary services to solve the difficulties of the incident."

A number of high profile and blue-chip companies rely on ACR on back-up as part of their after-market programme such as Volvo Action Service, MAN European Assistance, TIP/TLS, DKV, P&O Ferry Master and the Wincanton Group, to mention a few. At present ACR's broad territory stretches from Ireland at the West to Turkey in the East, from Norway to the North and Southwards to Morocco. In dedicating the best part of his life in developing the business to its current impressive level, Louis realises that in order to expand further, investment in more specialised personnel will have to take place. His first task is to add more Call-Centre staff that are multi-linguistic to fulfil his desire to expand further in the emerging markets in Eastern Europe. He also sees the need to establish a marketing department as well as business development division. All this will take time and money but while Louis is well aware of that, his main concern is to get the right people for the new positions. At present, staff turnover at the Call-Centre (which handles all the queries) is high with three years being the average working time-span of the highly trained telephone operators.

Looking through ACR's portfolio, the mode of transport does not necessarily need a set of wheels to come under its Euro Assistance umbrella!  6-12 metre pleasure boats are even covered!  All along the Spanish Coast and Greece, ACR has the means to carry out repairs to sails, hulls and engines. Craft recovery to another coast is also part of ACR's brief.

The Truck and Trailer element of ACR's Euro Assistance covers 50% of its daily activity. Recovery vehicles and mobile units for the roadside assistance provided by the agents are strategically placed, no more than 200 kms apart. In major cities, up to four agents are located in each direction so that delays in getting to the stranded motorist are at a minimum taking adverse traffic situations into consideration. ACR's Tyre Service offers the choice of various brands, either new or rethreads. Its Fridge Transport Assistance deserves special mention due to the extent these people go to facilitate the customer. Louis explains, "We have over 12 years experience in refrigerated assistance with the worlds best-known trademarks. In the case of an accident we provide an extra value service by appointing a Commissar expert to correctly document in an official manner, a full report of any incident and supply a translation in English if necessary. In addition, ACR will try and find local buyers for any residual load rescued."

Cars, vans and motorhomes are also part of ACR's remit. Van rental companies and courier operators form a major part of its LCV business.

To facilitate the international transport operator ACR has teamed up with Euro Diesel one of the fastest growing European fuel card supplier networks to provide a premium fuel card and other auxiliary services.

Passenger Transport is another of its specialities. With coach travel extremely popular across Europe, operators will be glad to know ACR is on hand if needs be. A replacement coach can be provided and hotel accommodation for the unlucky passengers if required.

Louis pins his success down to building a close and ever personal relationship with customers and agents. Offering a quality service at a realistic price was his philosophy all those years ago and remains to this day. Although the 'siesta' remains rooted in Spanish tradition, you will never find ACR sleeping on the job!