Enterprise Rent-A-Car Is A Failing Enterprise!

Reason #1:  The "We'll Take Your Reservation, We'll Confirm Your Reservation, But We Just Won't Honor Your Reservation" Policy:

I've rented from Enterprise Rent-A-Car 15 times in the past 15 months.  Looking to reduce uncertainty and make it easier for them to plan ahead, I always start by making a reservation on their web site.  Because I rent cars for business and need a large sedan, I make sure I reserve a car in the 'full size' class.  Their web site always verifies the availability of a car in this class, accepts my reservation, and then confirms my reservation on the web and through e-mail.  Doing this over the Internet is easy.  So far, so good!

I always print out a copy of my reservation and bring it with me to my local branch, but on approximately ten of these fifteen occasions I have been greeted with a matched pair of disappointments: my reserved car has been rented out to someone else, and what can only be described as "Rental Agent Spin Control".

"Rental Agent Spin Control" works like this when you arrive at their counter:

Step 1:  Betrayed Before You Get There

You don't know it yet, but they've already rented out your car to someone else long before you got there.  Apparently, the employee performance bonus system is so heavily weighted toward high "fleet utilization" that tearing up a reservation and renting your car to someone else as fast as possible is always preferred over saying no and holding the car in reserve.

Apparently, a "reservation" isn't really a reservation at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Step 2:  The Attempted Upsell

When you present your reservation, instead of admitting what they've done, they immediately offer an "upgrade" at a higher price.  This is always presented as a very desirable opportunity you'd be foolish to decline.  Forgive me for suggesting they're trying to convert a customer from being murderously surprised into being only pleasantly surprised.

Step 3:  The Offer Of The "Free Upgrade"

If you don't bite, they become more desperate and it becomes a "free" upgrade.  Their goal is to finesse you into a substitute car and hope you won't notice the bait-and-switch.  Here's an example from my last rental of two days ago:

Clearly, an important part of Rental Agent Spin Control is telling the customer literally anything they might want to hear and to keep trying until something sticks.

Step 4:  The Ducking, Dodging, And Weaving Phase

Eventually, you will figure out they tore up your reservation and rented out your car to someone else long before you got there, all in the name of improving "fleet utilization".  If you stare them down and repeatedly ask "What about my reservation?", they've obviously been trained never to fess up, so they keep spinning, ducking, dodging and weaving, making you offers on all sorts of other vehicles no one else wanted.

At no point do they simply respond to your question with a straight answer.  Their answer to every question is a nervously faked smile and an offer that begins with the words "Would you like a...".

To their credit, I have not yet been offered any of these vehicles as a "free upgrade", but I suppose it's only a matter of time:

• Taxi Cab

• Fire Engine

• Lunar Rover

• Hearse

Step 5:  The Customer Loses The Battle

Sooner or later, you tire of this game and accept one of their white elephants to get on your way.  Typically, it's a giant SUV or pickup, which forces you to waste a lot of time looking for parking as many financial district parking garages won't take them, leaving you to be aggressively waved off at the entrance like a crippled airliner refused clearance to land with a load of infected passengers.  And then, you have to pay even more for the gasoline for the larger vehicle and often a higher price for Collision Damage Waiver.

Of course, at no time do they acknowledge they've torn up your reservation; instead, you've been given a vastly different vehicle and they relentlessly try to persuade you that you're better off than you were.

It's simply bait-and-switch.

Step 6:  The Futile Appeal To Reason

Eventually, while signing the paperwork, you may be tempted to start a discussion with the counter agents about the definition of the word "reservation".

This may remind you of a conversation in Seinfeld Episode #28, "The Alternate Side":

As entertaining as this sounds, it will get you nowhere.  The argument can be summarized as follows:

If you look at that fourth definition, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is apparently prepared to argue that William Shakespeare didn't know what he was talking about.

Step 7:  The Final Indignity

If you've become friendly with the staff, say, after fifteen rentals in which you've consistently been patient, helpful, flexible and accommodating, they might even try to put your mind at ease by announcing that, in fact, when it comes to dishonored reservations, "Everyone in the travel business does this".

No.  They don't.

My Conclusion:

There are two parts to a reservation: the offering, and the holding.  Offering a reservation increases profits because the customer commits to a time, date, and car.  Holding the reservation decreases profits because it reduces flexibility if there are a lot of walk-in customers.  Normally, these two parts of the reservation process are bound together by a promise.  It appears Enterprise has decided to unbundle the two parts, take the piece they like and discard both the piece they don't like and the promise that held it all together.

Tough luck if you're on the customer end of the promise formerly known as a "reservation".

Total Time Lost Per Rental Due To Reason #1:  10 - 15 minutes

<< Why I Built This Site     Reason #2 >>

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