I Work At NatRes

[NatResGirl]

I hate calling branches because I know everyone hates us.

And I hate RALPH.

Any questions?

Originally Posted by NatResGirl

I hate calling branches because I know everyone hates us.

And I hate RALPH.

Any questions?

If you put out they will like you

We have no fraternization scandals at NatRes.

[NatResGirl]

Some of my favorite things to hear every day at work.

"No, I don't want to be picked up. I want the car DELIVERED. I'm going to sue you for false advertising! You say you deliver!"
"No, sir, we advertise, "Pick Enterprise. We'll PICK YOU UP." This is not Dominoe's."

On Saturdays at 11am, East Coast customers with sticks up their asses call and say:
"What do you mean they close at noon? How can you make any money if you close at noon on a Saturday?"
Or, alternatively:
"What do you mean they closed at noon? But I have to return my car! They didn't tell me their hours! They can't charge me through Monday!"
When I tell them the hours are on their contract, which they signed:
"Who reads contracts before they sign them?!"

Roadside assistance call:
"I need a new car because my CD player doesn't work."
"I need a new car because my remote door unlock doesn't work. Also, I want YOU to DELIVER it to me from sixty minutes away."
"I need a new car because I don't look good in this color."

I get branches calling the roadside line wanting me to send someone to tow a vehicle off their lot. If it's not a GM or Mitsubishi vehicle, it's going to be through AAA and it's going to be billed to their office anyway. Plus they'll be charged for the roadside call. But whatever.

I get lots of customers (AND a few employees) who think I'm a live operator employed solely to transfer them toll-free to the office of their choice. They get ticked off when I tell them I'm not allowed to do that and I give them the 800 number and tell them how to reach the offices toll-free on their own. Heaven forbid they have to dial a few more numbers.

"What kind of operation are you running? Everyone else lets me pick up a car in Bangor, Maine and return it in Phoenix, Arizona."

"$250 to pick up at the Denver Airport and return it a few minutes away downtown on Broadway?! That's not a drop fee, that's highway robbery!"

(Don't even get me started on the inter-province drop fees in Canada. Why not just say the answer is no? Who in their right mind would ever pay a few thousand dollars for a drop fee? Why not just FLY?)

"So you can't drive the cars if you have a learner's permit?"

"Why will they want a deposit? I want to pay when I get back. I shouldn't have to pay when I pick up the car."

"My brother has a license, but I don't. I have the credit card. Can we rent a car with you?"

"Manhattan is sold out? You guys never have cars."
"Ma'am, it would help to call two months ahead of time instead of two hours."

And this has been my living hell for the past week:
"I need a minivan in Orlando for this Friday, July 1. What? You're sold out? #&*$&* you!!!"

Do you pronnounce NATRES:
Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaat
Reeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss ssssssssss ?

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by NatResGirl

I hate calling branches because I know everyone hates us.

And I hate RALPH.

Any questions?

Yes, I've got a question or two.

Please don't take offense, but seriously, how come NatRes takes reservations without first checking to see if the branch has any cars available?

Admin

[B7 for Life]

National Reservations make reservations according to how it is listed on a screen. At the airport branches, we would call NATRES and tell them to raise rates or lower rates, or sell out on certain types of cars such as mini vans or luxury cars. Most of the local branches don't access national reservations and their area manager does avaibility for them. As an area manager, they want to see as many deals as possible, if the demand is there, they can grow their fleet, creating more income. An area manger also considers the amount of cars in an area that he/she controls, not for the specific branch. The employees at the specific branch are sometimes left scampering for cars from other branches because of internet or national reservations that have been made and nobody changed the avaibility status.

Airport locations have a special division of Enterprise called Fleet Utilization. They shop competition, raise and lower rates in order to get a certain % of cars on the road. They normally don't take into consideration of shop cars and sale cars. They mostly go by fleet size. This can be over rided by the branch to raise or lower rates in order to get certain typs of vehciles on the road. Such as trucks or mini vans to get them on the road.

[B7 for Life]

I never hated NatRes but sometimes I wondered if you sometimes took the easy rout and just dumped a phone call here or there on us. Just for shits and giggles. But yes, I feel your pain with those questions and comments. I worked at the Seattle airport and we were open on Holidays and weekends. We would get all the phone calls for problems in Western Washington for a while. Talk about a learning experence, UGH

[NatResGirl]

What was said about area managers controlling availability is correct. We do not have a screen which shows us *exactly* how many cars are available. Our screen shows us ECAR, CCAR, ICAR, etc., and then an O for "Open," meaning we can book, or an "R" for restricted, meaning we MUST call the branch to confirm availability before booking--this happens most commonly for large SUVs, cargo vans, 12- or 15-passenger vans, luxury cars, etc., things they don't have a whole lot of. R-cars are specific settings; it doesn't automatically switch to that when they're running low on something. Alternatively, it will say "S" if someone has called to say they are sold out of the vehicle in question. If it displays "S" after the car type, we physically cannot select anything--the option doesn't exist--and it shows us no prices. If a location is completely sold out, either the price column will be blank or it will show all S's and we cannot move beyond that screen. Someone MUST call and sell out if there are no cars. Otherwise, RALPH will continue to show availability, and we will continue to book cars. This, Admin, is a big part of the reason why sometimes there are no cars when you get there. You book on the Internet, no one has called to sell out (it looks bad for them to sell out, on top of all of this), there end up not being enough cars in the area, and you and the employees you're facing are both at a loss. Unless you're talking about a rental on a busy holiday weekend, this is probably what is happening. It is not necessarily the fault of the rental agents that there are no cars. The employees who have the misfortune of having to be the ones to tell you they're sold out are merely the ones who have to take the shit from everyone (and smile while taking it) when there are no cars. Also, people do call to extend reservations. If someone already has the car rented and calls in to say they want it a couple days longer, that's guaranteed money. Why in the world would the employee turn them down and say "No, come back, we need that car, someone MIGHT be coming in for it this afternoon" ? This is a business, and though we would like to, we can't possibly please *everyone* and still break even. That being said, it still sucks and I hate having to deal with it. It seems a bit inefficient to me, but what do I know? I'm just a reservation agent.

And it gets to me too. It really, *really* sucks when an office SHOWS availability, I have a customer on the line with a broken-down Enterprise rental needing a switchout, I call the office, and they have no cars (or at least claim not to have any). You try telling someone who's in the middle of nowhere and who has to work the next morning that you're sorry their rental broke down, but we have no cars available where they are and we'll have to get them a hotel for the evening. It's so much fun, let me tell you.

As for whether we dump calls on the branches, I personally will try to answer questions as best I can. For certain kinds of questions, like "Can I use a debit card" or "I INSIST on knowing the makes and models that office carries" or "I have to do a one-way," if they don't like the answer I give them, a lot of the time they'll ask for the phone number of the branch in question, and I cannot refuse to give it to them. For other questions, like "Is that the office by Burger King," things I can't possibly know the answer to, I give them the number and have them call.

One thing has been bothering me. I saw on someone else's list of funny things customers say, something about "My insurance company is paying for this, why do I have to pay a deposit?" ... we're told that there are no deposits if the branch is billing directly to an insurance company. We're trained to not even qualify the renter on calls involving direct-bill insurance claims. If customers do need credit cards, then there's something a couple hundred people in the call center are doing wrong multiple times every day, and that needs to be corrected...

NATRES tells people they can do one way rentals - not an option in the summer. They also occasionally tell them we would have car seats (according to customers who made a res via NATRES). It seems that NATRES doesn't always understand the things for airports, such as size, car availability etc.