I’ve recently been carrying out some training in mainland Europe that has necessitated the use of a hire car in order for me to expediently and economically carry out my work. In this month’s blog I wanted to give you the benefit of my first-hand experience of some truly awful ‘customer service’ that I received from a global car rental company.
Firstly, some background. I chose the company because they are the preferred partners of the airline that I had booked my flight with and it was easier for me to book the hire car at the same time as the flight. I didn’t choose them because they were the cheapest; I chose them because of the convenience of booking.
I had an early morning flight from Birmingham, which arrived in Munich at 10 a.m. My plan was to collect the car and drive the 2 hours or so to my hotel, which would give me the opportunity to work at the hotel & prepare for my following day. I had contacted the hotel in advance of my arrival to ensure I was able to have an early check-in.
Forward-wind to my arrival in Munich. There were unbelievable queues at the hire car check in desks that appeared to be unique to this specific company. Competitor rental companies’ customers on the stations adjacent were being dealt with speedily and efficiently and turned around within minutes. I joined one of three queues being dealt by only three personnel.
In the interests of brevity I’ll cut to the chase – I waited 2 hours to been seen by a check-in agent (longer than the flight that had brought me from the UK). A totally inefficient staff member made their way between the ever-increasing queues offering insincere platitudes and luke-warm water to try to placate the furious customers. I asked some simple questions amongst which was “If you know you have a high number of rentals why do you not have the resource to deal with them?” More mock empathy followed including “I know how you feel”. Trust me, you didn’t!
During my 2-hour wait I tweeted my dissatisfaction to the company and (some time later) received another insincere message via the medium of social media. Having eventually been served (?), I collected the keys, walked to the other side of the terminal building, located the car, plugged in the Garmin sat nav, figured out how to work it and proceeded to the exit barrier to discover the rental agent had given me an invalid ticket. I buzzed the operator on the barrier who informed me that I would have to go back to the main terminal because (and I quote) “This is not possible for me to open the barrier”. I then had to reverse the car, (with traffic queuing to get out behind me) abandon it in a space and walk back to the terminal. The queue was still huge. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood to queue any more.
Sometime later the company tweeted again asking how my rental was going after the delay. I told them about the hassle that I had had (in less than 140 characters), to which they replied: “We’re very sorry for all the trouble. Please let us know if we can assist during your rental”. Assist?! In which way, exactly? I tweeted back, informing them that I travel extensively and would never use them again. Their response? Nothing. Yep, nothing!
Now, I spent many years working in a customer-facing role and I’ve made mistakes. I’ve not ever deliberately done it but in the past I’ve upset customers and/or delivered a less than stellar customer experience. However, when it has happened I’ve recognised it, apologised (genuinely) and where possible ensured that processes and systems have been reviewed, changed or enhanced to eliminate or at least reduce the possibility of the same thing happening again. I was also taught to ask the customer what they wanted me (or the organisation) to do in order to remedy the situation.
Customer service is a mind-set, not a department. This rental company have ensured that I will never, ever give them my custom again because of their insincerity, dismal processes and superficial ‘customer care’. The ironic postscript to this story is I paid to rent an Opel Astra but was actually given a Mini Cooper S - extraordinary fun to drive and quick. In normal circumstances I would have been raving about the experience… But we all know the power of social media & blogs and my negative experience dwarfed the unintentional upgrade.
Any business that is serious about customer service invests in it. It invests in processes, training and the leadership of the business displays role-model customer-centric behaviour. I wish this company luck, because they have strong competition and believe me, the competition do it better. Ask any of the competitor’s customers at Munich airport on the morning of August 12th 2015.