Bigger accounts, of course, translate into bigger demands: Globetrotting executives may require transport in Paris and Poughkeepsie on the same day. Determined to be all places for all people, Rutter has assembled a network of affiliated companies to which Commonwealth can farm out jobs, taking a percentage of each trip. Today the company has around 400 affiliates worldwide, accounting for 40 percent of revenue.
Throughout Commonwealth's expansion, Rutter has hewed to a philosophy he once heard described as "building the church for Easter Sunday." "We create infrastructure in anticipation of revenue," he explains. "That ensures service delivery will be impeccable 100 percent of the time. We can always handle 105 percent of our absolute busiest day. Is that a more expensive way of doing it? You bet. But the fact is we don't lose customers, which means we can afford to pay that premium."
So Rutter spends. His New York and Boston fleets now total 180 vehicles. His staff numbers 320, including recently hired executives dedicated to managing affiliates and training. He also invests heavily in technology. Drivers carry BlackBerrys (NASDAQ:RIMM) loaded with flight-tracking software. The company records all phone conversations to aid with problem resolution. Every car is equipped with cameras called DriveCams, which record drivers' performance in a continuous loop. When the system detects a car stopping abruptly or suddenly changing lanes, for example, it captures the 10 seconds of film preceding and following the event.
"It manages driver behavior and keeps insurance costs down," says Rutter, cheerfully clicking through a library of favorite clips he keeps handy (accidents in which Commonwealth was exonerated by proof of boneheaded behavior by the other driver).
Putting on the Ritz
Commonwealth is a high-tech business by industry standards. But it's the technology Rutter eschews that betrays his hand. Several years ago Commonwealth bought a $50,000 phone system with all the bells and whistles and promptly disabled a major whistle: the feature that forced callers to navigate through endless menu prompts. Phone Commonwealth and you are greeted instantly with the recorded assurance that your call will be answered within three rings. And it is. "Self-service sounds like it's about convenience, but it's making the client do all the work," says Rutter. "That is an anti-customer-service message."
Rick Blair was skeptical of the three-ring policy when he joined Commonwealth two and a half years ago as director of call center operations. Blair was a 28-year veteran of Delta Airlines (NYSE:DAL), where he had internalized the automation-equals-efficiency formula so dear to corporations. Now he crows about the three-ring promise as proudly as Rutter. "Sure, it's more expensive," says Blair. "If we went self-service we could probably cut the call center staff by 40 percent. But the customer experience would be awful."
The customer experience. Fragile, subjective, multifaceted. It is Rutter's obsession. He is determined to deliver the Platonic ideal of limousine service. Acutely aware that over 90 percent of his staff directly touches the customer, Rutter has invested everything in his employees.
"Other companies are metal-centric--mostly about the cars," says Rutter. "We are flesh-centric. We are about people."
Commonwealth has always had its own chivalric code by which chauffeurs, in particular, must operate. For example, they are urged to closely observe and record clients' preferences. So when a driver turns up 15 minutes early (to forestall incipient panic on the part of the traveler), he or she may come bearing the client's favorite coffee drink, cold beverage, and reading material. The temperature in the car is preset to the client's liking, the radio tuned to his favorite station. Rutter is hiring a concierge whose full-time job will be tracking that information.
The business has also instituted a kind of secret shopper program. Every driver knows that twice a year someone recruited by management--an employee's friend, a business partner, occasionally a client--will be evaluating his performance from the back seat. These incognito riders assess the chauffeur on 25 parameters: Was the car parked with the rear door in line with the building door from which you were exiting? If you gave the chauffeur a change in the itinerary or a special request, did he or she accept it professionally and make the necessary change by saying, "Of course, that will not be a problem"?
Delighting Miss Daisy
So how do you transform an ethnically diverse work force with little higher education into a squadron of fastidious Jeeveses? Rutter says it's elementary. "Training. Training. Training. Motivating. Training. Mentoring. Training. Leading. Training. Training. Training."
Since the beginning of the year, training at Commonwealth has gone from something done well to something done fanatically. In January, Rutter hired a full-time director of employee and organizational development: Brett Tyson, a native South African and former owner of his own training company. Tyson is concocting a full-scale curriculum for each of the company's departments, beginning with the chauffeurs.
