Area Manager Zack Smilak

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

I've just posted a new Horror Story today about a customer who claims a couple of coats were stolen out of his car when he returned it to the Atlanta airport. It sounds like the customer did just about everything right to try to resolve the problem and Enterprise just repeatedly dropped the ball.

Now the customer's mailed a letter to Andy Taylor and received no reply.

Why do I keep getting these messages and letters from customers who have these horror stories?

Zack Smilak; you're mentioned by name in this Horror Story. Anything to add?

if you leave something in the car when you return it, it is your fault. NOT ENTERPRISE's fault.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

if you leave something in the car when you return it, it is your fault. NOT ENTERPRISE's fault.

So you're saying the moment a customer walks away from a returned car, you're allowed to steal anything they left behind and tell whatever lie is necessary to continue the theft, even if the customer comes back ten minutes later?

Companies on the way up look for excuses to justify doing the right thing. Companies on the way down look for excuses to justify benefitting themselves to the disadvantage of their customers.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

if you leave something in the car when you return it, it is your fault. NOT ENTERPRISE's fault.

In the UK all companies are required to keep lost property for a minimum of three months.

Of course ERAC thought they where exempt until a solicitor recently left someting in a hire car ! hell it was like bonfire night had come early, he put ERAC in there place, now nearly all branches have a lockable cabinet for this purpose.

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

So you're saying the moment a customer walks away from a returned car, you're allowed to steal anything they left behind and tell whatever lie is necessary to continue the theft, even if the customer comes back ten minutes later?

Companies on the way up look for excuses to justify doing the right thing. Companies on the way down look for excuses to justify benefitting themselves to the disadvantage of their customers.

your hatred grows Admin! You really think the company condones stealing? No jerks in branches sometimes take things from a rental and deposit them in their cars without telling a soul. Most of the forgotten stuff sits in lost and found for months then when the bin is full, the employees take anything they want (trust me it's not the great stuff that's forgotten) and donate or throw away the rest. There's no company manual for condoning theft. This is conducted by PEOPLE on the way down, not the company. There are assholes and douche bags (like that?) in every corporation.

stealing from customers used to happen all the time at my old branches. often the cars would be collected from customers by drivers who would drive straight into the wash bay and smuggle the stuff out of the car into their own car parked in the yard without anyone knowing. if the customer phoned up we would go and check the car for coats/umbrellas etc and they obviously wouldnt be in the car. only when this happens a few times over a few months do you start to realise thats its being smugggled by the people collecting the car. if you got on well with the drivers and they trusted you, they would sometimes tell you stories of what they've collected - mostly cds.

Ok...so this guy said it was him, his wife and daughter. So that means if he was driving, either his daughter or wife had to be sitting in the back seat. If my reasoning is correct, I think it would follow that his wife or daughter is blind as they did not see these coats sitting right next to them when they got out of the car.

I always felt for that traveler that was alone and left a bag or some personal item in the back seat or trunk. But here, he had a member of his own family sitting right next to these coats and they obviously didn't care too much to take them out of the car. Blame your stupid family, don't blame Enterprise.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ok...so this guy said it was him, his wife and daughter. So that means if he was driving, either his daughter or wife had to be sitting in the back seat. If my reasoning is correct, I think it would follow that his wife or daughter is blind as they did not see these coats sitting right next to them when they got out of the car.

I always felt for that traveler that was alone and left a bag or some personal item in the back seat or trunk. But here, he had a member of his own family sitting right next to these coats and they obviously didn't care too much to take them out of the car. Blame your stupid family, don't blame Enterprise.

Wow. A child overlooks something on the backseat next to them and you conclude they're either blind or stupid and don't deserve to have the item returned.

Nicely done.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

stealing from customers used to happen all the time at my old branches. often the cars would be collected from customers by drivers who would drive straight into the wash bay and smuggle the stuff out of the car into their own car parked in the yard without anyone knowing. if the customer phoned up we would go and check the car for coats/umbrellas etc and they obviously wouldnt be in the car. only when this happens a few times over a few months do you start to realise thats its being smugggled by the people collecting the car. if you got on well with the drivers and they trusted you, they would sometimes tell you stories of what they've collected - mostly cds.

exactly my point. not condoned, people do it in the shadows because they're unethical bottom-feeders. I never stole anything. I did get something that sat in lost and found for 4 months, a skateboard no one claimed. It wasn't a windfall by any means. I didn't hide it though, just waited the 4 months. not everyone is unethical or shady at ERAC, contrary to popular belief. (admin.)

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by bleedgreen

your hatred grows Admin! You really think the company condones stealing? No jerks in branches sometimes take things from a rental and deposit them in their cars without telling a soul. Most of the forgotten stuff sits in lost and found for months then when the bin is full, the employees take anything they want (trust me it's not the great stuff that's forgotten) and donate or throw away the rest. There's no company manual for condoning theft. This is conducted by PEOPLE on the way down, not the company. There are assholes and douche bags (like that?) in every corporation.

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.