Quote:
| Originally Posted by BranchManager Reservations:
1) 20% of my reservations never show up. They don't call, they just don't show up. Out of 100 reservations, that leaves 80.
2) 40% of the reservations that don't show up either called to confirm their reservation the day before, or were called by the banch and confirmed their reservation.
3) 15% of my reservations that do show up don't qualify to rent. They might have a debit card with a luxury car reservation for example. This percentage increases drastically during prom time, but let's stay at 15%. Out of 80 people coming in, this leaves 68.
4) 50% of people with reservations do not come in ON TIME. By on time I mean at least 1 hour early or late for their reservation. Would a restaurant honor a reservation an hour early or late? No no no. Out of the 68 people, that leaves 34.
5) 5% of my reservations want a car other than they reserved. (The thought an enconomy car was a Stratus, or they couldn't book an SUV online but want one). Out of 34 people that leaves 32 that wanted to honor their reservation.
So out of 100 people, 32 will be in for the cars they reserved.
So if i have 10 reservations, 3-4 can be realistically expected to come in for their cars. I have 5 people scheduled to return today. Why should I get more cars?
But then the person that assured me he'd be in before 12:00 wants to keep his car over the weekend. Now you come in 5 minutes after I received that phone call. You're one of those 3 people who actually made it in for the reservation. Now it's MY fault that your car isn't ready.
So what can I do except call another branch that has a full size car on the lot and assure them that my 2nd customer will be returning THEIR full size car at 3:00, more than enough time for their 4:30 reservation. They give me the car and you lost 10 minutes. But now they're short that car- and if this customer doesn't come in either, oh no, another headache.
My other option is to get all 10 cars for all 10 reservations, pay for 10 cars, but only rent 3 (Plus 2 to walk in customers) so i sit at 50% fleet utilization, and make less money than it takes to pay the bills at the branch.
Or I could do what every other business, such as AIRLINES, HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, TRAIN STATIONS, BUS STATIONS, and anyone else who takes reservations does, and figure that no show ratio into my plan, and hope today isn't that 1 day out of 20 where 7 people show up instead of 3.
I don't know what anyone else does for a living, but I assure you, no one has 100% customer satisfaction, or a 100% rate of honored reservations. |
Rattling off numbers like these certainly gives you the look of credibility, but I have a few questions about them.
1. What kind of sample size are you working with here? I'm an avid poker player, so I know better than most people that you can't get an accurate picture without a lot of information.
2. 15% of renters not qualifying seems a little high to me.. If this many people are making it into your branch and not qualifying, it seems to me that your employees aren't doing a very good job of explaining the qualifications for renting on the phone.
3. Your stats fail to account for customers that fall into more than one categorty. More times than not the trouble customers are nutjobs across the board. They show up late, don't qualify and demand the wrong vehicle. I believe that your numbers are greatly skewed.
The difference between bad companies and great companies is that great companies realize there are problems inherent to their industry. But unlike Enterprise, they don't just accept it as unfixable.... They take exception to these problems and try to make it right for the customer.
Enterprise may have enjoyed the fastest growth of the rental companies. And this growth largely contributed to their image in the 90s. But the backlash is already happening. Believe me, a reputation for being a shady company will stick with Enterprise for a lot longer than its success has.