for good service levels and flexibility and cost to the end user the answer has to be local is best.national agreements are fine but good service in one area has poor service in another,and just a national number to comunicate with.apart from the initial cost of setting up the contract,everything else seems more expensive and slower.local outfits usually tend to have more experience on a wider selection of equipment.
i think that the demand for service has not gone up,it has gone down in the current climate with a lot of end users ignoring the safety aspect of the job.end users are not even having the annual thorough inspections