The front desk is a hive of activity, and likewise the servicing and repairs team behind the scenes.


everybody does, but I think what differentiates us is the service provided. You can be very confident walking into PRS that you’ll walk away with what you wanted. We’ll crosshire if we don’t have a product in stock. We use a range of local and national suppliers, who are our first ports of call, and we’ll keep trying until we get what we’re looking for.


Q: In spite of your lengthy history in the hire sector, you have joined PRS relatively recently. What does your role entail and how do you spread the company message? A: This was initially a traditional salesman role, and a lot of my job still involves being on the road looking for new business. I’ve also been looking at some of the lapsed customers on our database and I’m working on our social media, which can be challenging. I’ve been trying to put interesting content out there, such as when we have special offers or have bought new pieces of equipment. I’d say that Facebook is most relevant to for us, purely because of the age profile, but I think it’s important that all social media content is engaging.


Servicing is taken care of within the depot, although the engineers cleared off as soon as the camera came out.


Q: As a relatively small company supplying a range of construction equipment, how do you ensure that you keep abreast of such concerns as workplace dust and fuel emissions? A: We’re quite fortunate because the lady who runs our training division also looks after our compliance. She’ll be the one who’ll tell us if


something is not safe any more and what the new ways of working are. A lot of the smaller builders who we work with have cost considerations, but we always try hard to remain compliant and continue to deliver our services at a budget. We have to remain compliant, otherwise people won’t take us


seriously. What I find has changed from when I first started in the hire business is a lot more concern about working at height and hand-arm vibration - we get asked a lot more about those nowadays.


Q: It’s unusual to see a hire company with a dedicated training building on-site. How did that come about? A: Steve identified training as a gap in the market, but it’s another example of that attitude of always delivering - at some time in the past somebody would have asked him if he did training courses and he will have said yes. How it works is that we have our own training rooms and staff who look after those, then we outsource our courses and


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we’ll arrange training for, say, IPAF (International Powered Access Federation) and the trainer will use our facilities and our powered access equipment. We will always keep certain courses in the diary, or perhaps one of


our customers will ring up and say that he’s taking on eight guys who need face-fit training and we’ll put a course on for that and get them all trained up in one go. Because training is such a specialised area, we felt we needed to have somebody to manage it almost as a separate entity, but it’s still a very important side of our business.


Q: What are the challenges facing your company at the moment and looking ahead? A: I suppose we are fortunate that people will always need their extensions building, regardless whether we’re part of the EU or not, but my instinct is that Brexit will have a longer term effect. I think Coronavirus is more interesting, because if people stop leaving their houses they’ll stop hiring equipment, and that could have a much more immediate impact. Right now I’m more worried about that, if I’m honest.


Q: Finally, with 40 years of history, what lessons has the business learned and what advice would you offer? A: One thing I think that bears repeating, is that you have to be in a position to say yes - as a smaller business within the hire industry, we are perhaps better placed to do that. Also, I think as businesses get bigger they are at risk of forgetting how they got there. I have worked for a large company in the past that got into trouble for doing that, so I think it’s important to never forget the people who got you where you are. This ethos comes from Steve and it runs right though the company. It wouldn’t be unusual for him to turn up and jump in a van to make a delivery if he thought a customer was going to get let down. And this is one of the main reasons why we’ve been in this business for so long.


• 01159 857575 www.prshireservicesltd.co.uk


The view from the street - the hire depot on the left, and the diamond drilling and training facility next door.


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