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| Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin I'm not sure I completely agree with a philosophy of separating the company's responsibility from the individual's responsibility. If you're the company's customer service "representative", then you're acting for the company, and the company is responsible for what you do. Sure, there are always a few bad eggs in every organization, but once the company culture starts dismissing complaints as being only really against specific individuals, then they've abandoned responsibility for making things work.
As a customer, I'm dealing with Enterprise, not individual employees, whom, if they screw up, are immediately cut off and set adrift as individuals by Enterprise.
It always cracks me up to hear these arguments for bad service: the individual says "It's not my fault; my company doesn't give me the resources (cars, employees, time, whatever) to do my job properly", and the company says "Well, that might just be a case of a single individual not performing up to our standards". Both parties can shift responsibility and the customer gets screwed and it's "nobody's fault".
If these thieves are employed by Enterprise, and are on your location and on your clock, the customer really doesn't want to hear "Oh, that wasn't Enterprise stealing from you, that was just an individual employee".
I'm not saying Enterprise condones stealing. But I've heard about it frequently enough to wonder if it's really taken seriously. And what about the guy in this letter? Why not a better response from Enterprise? That branch manager should have been all over that issue and got it solved immediately. Those coats were in the trunk of a car and could have been found within minutes. Instead, they dragged their feet and now it's on Failing Enterprise. |
Okay, may times when the customer calls, the car is already on rent to the next customer. who's to say that next customer didn't steal the item in question? I've called several customers a week into their rental to ask if they found xxx item because the last renter says they may have forgotten it in the trunk/glovebox etc. I always got a "no."
I understand your philosophy of the customer is always right, but sometimes when you forget something and no one notices, the next customer can steal too. not just the erac employees. I never had a coworker tell me they stole anything... I wouldn't have reacted favorably, so I'm sure they wouldn't have told me if they did.
I'm not sure I completely agree with your philosophy that it's the company's responsibility to rectify a situation if there is no proof or even an indicator that an employee stole anything. You're supposed to back your employees too, not just blindly assume your customer is always right. There has to be a balance.
There are shady customers too, not just ERAC employees. That was all I was trying to get at.