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Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the ESQI score was the percentage who chose one of the two top categories, not just the top category. If this is true, then the other 20% chose "somewhat satisfied", or lower.

Which is correct?

Admin

I started to write a short response, but ended up with a monster of a response on the problem with ESQI measurement in general. Enjoy.


Admin,

ESQI is a funny thing. And it is flawed in so many ways.

As one of the four key areas of the ERAC business model, it is supposed to make or break the success of the employees, driving them to boost customer satisfaction scores in order to achieve promotions, etc.

Here's how it works: A sample is taken of closed contracts from a branch. Those people are called and generally asked a couple questions, usually some form of:
1. "Are you Completely Satisfied, Somewhat satisfied, Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or completely dissatisfied with the service you received?"
2. "Would you like someone at the branch to contact you?"
3. "Would you rent again from ERAC?"

I heard once that those were the three questions they were supposed to cover on every call, but (even as an employee) I was called a couple times and asked other stuff, or similar stuff in a different way.

The ESQI scores are compiled only from those who answer "completely satisfied" to question 1. No matter how the person responds to question 1, they can still request someone at the branch contact them and a printout appears on the branch printer for the BM, and some higher up gets it too, I think the ARM and the GRM. I heard that question 3 is the one that the higher-ups care about (which makes sense) and their response appeared on the printout as "definitely will rent again, probably will rent again,... etc., to definitely will not rent again."

All that sounds really good up front. Here's where I think the flaws come in:

ESQI as a measurement tool is arbitrary: People have 1 month numbers, 3 month rolling averages, and 12 month rolling average. I think the 12 month numbers tell the real story but they are usually quite a bit worse than the 3 month or 1 month numbers. I'd like to know what ERAC Warrior's 12 month number is. Last I heard, ERAC (as a company) had a 12 month rolling average of 78%. The 1 month number often shows big swings in numbers, like 65% one month and 90% the next month, the 3 month number smooths things out. Again, I think the 12 month number tells the real story. (On a side note, since turnover is so huge, I don't think anyone ever quotes the 12 month number, because "it's such a bad number and I wasn't there the whole time and it improved as soon as I got to the branch, here's the proof: a higher 3 month number." But that's just an opinion).

The second reason I think ESQI is arbitrary is because promotions and raises, etc. are supposed to be based on whether your ESQI number is at or above group average. However, I have seen this waived for "deserving" employees... while others have gone without a raise "because of the ESQI rule." So it seems to be up to someone else to decide whether or not someone should get their raise or promotion even though they throw out this measurable thing as the determining factor.

Next, ESQI is flawed because it has a crappy sample size. I don't know exactly how many, but they don't take a percentage of closed tickets, which would make sense, they take a fixed number of tickets, no matter what size of branch you are. So a small branch that writes a couple hundred tickets a month is actually judged more harshly than a larger branch that might write a thousand. As a BM of a small branch I asked my ARM about this and he said I should be proud that my ESQI number is a truer number than those of a larger branch. Yeah, I was thrilled.

ESQI is a measurement of only those who answer completely satisfied, which is a noble thing to measure. The problem is that the term completely satisfied is so obtuse that it's not a real measurement of anything except the renter's foggy memory of the entire experience of bringing their car into the shop, getting it fixed, getting a rental, etc. In theory, it's an on-the-scale-of-1-to-5 measurement of the service provided but in practice it's an on-the-scale-of-1-to-5 measurement of how the person felt about EVERYTHING: whether their own car was repaired on time, whether they liked the color of the rental car, whether they really wanted the free upgrade to the SUV they saw, etc.

How do I know this? Because question 2 asks if they would like a call from the BM. As a BM I got printouts from people who were everywhere on the range from completely satisfied to completely dissatisfied so when I called them up to ask them what we could have done better, the answer always came back something like, "oh, you did everything fine, it's just that I saw a blue SUV in your lot and asked for a free upgrade and the guy wouldn't give it to me" or something like that. In the 3 1/2 years I was a BM I NEVER ONCE RECEIVED a service complaint through this system. They were always perception complaints. I think service complaints don't get to the BM often because the person with the really bad experience doesn't want a call from someone at the branch. They just want to be left alone. So no printout.

Next, ESQI is a measure of people who answer the phone. If someone screens their calls, no matter how satisfied or dissatisfied, the branch has no idea.

The next reason ESQI is flawed is because people are asked if they will rent from ERAC again based on the definitely yes/somewhat yes/etc. model of answers and when I was a BM I had to call people and ask them why they would never rent from ERAC again even though they said they were completely satisfied and they said they wouldn't because they hoped they never got into an accident again, but if they ever did get into an accident, they definitely would. Then I would have to message my ARM and he would message the GRM and everyone would be happy and I'd have just wasted a ton of my time on a misinterpretation.

The last reason ESQI is flawed is because it's a measurement of completely satisfied only, which gives ARMs and GRMs an opportunity to say "if you could just make a few more somewhat-satisfied customers into completely satisfied customers, your number would be that much higher." And then they'd ask you how you would do it and you'd have to respond "we'll need to shake more hands at the front counter and greet people by name and we'll have to make sure we're asking everyone the 3 ESQI questions at the end of the rental." and the GRM would say, "and?" And then the self-respecting branch manager would wince internally and say "and we'll have to sell more CDW because CDW is good for ESQI." and a little part of the BM's soul would die... and they would really want to scream out: "We need more damn cars to fulfill our damn reservations that you keep telling us to take even though I know that we don't have the cars to service the rezos and I'm working on the frontline and dealing with the irate customers and you're in your office doing jack-all and spying on us with mystery shoppers to find out if we're turning down reservations and if we are we get fired." But no one who wants to keep their job would say that.

Wow, I hope the first part was well balanced. The last part got a little emotional but I'm doing much less surly now!

ERAC employees are also supposed to ask 3 ESQI questions at the end of every rental: "how was everything with our service?" "Was there anything we could improve on?" "If so, what?". That could potentially curtail customer service problems, but here's why this system doesn't work:

Employees instead ask "how was everything with the rental?" because if they ask the way they're supposed to, they get funny looks so they ask about the rental and customers say "fine" and the employee thinks they've done their job and nothing has been fixed if something was wrong. Or the employee asks "were you completely satisfied with the service?" and the customer may nod or whatever because even though there are jerky customers out there, there's also nice people who don't like confrontation. By asking this, the employee accomplishes two things: they THINK they've done their job but ignored learning anything of value, and they've unconsciously trained the customer to know that "completely satisfied" is the thing they want to hear so if they hear it again on the ESQI phone call that's their response. As well, once the employee at the counter asks the first of the three ESQI questions, and the customer answers with a nod that everything was fine with the rental, the employee then finishes up and drives the customer to wherever, ignoring a really good opportunity to find out if there was anything that could be improved. Of course the flipside to this is that employees simply stop asking because they're sick of hearing "well, the rental could be free." which I used to hear a lot and it drove me nuts because no one had any real suggestions. And employees are scared to ask because there's lots of times when you ask if there was anything you could have done better and the customer rants and rants and then you have to drive them somewhere... and it's always a long drive!

Hope this has been helpful, Admin. Keep up the good work.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Surly Pete

I started to write a short response, but ended up with a monster of a response on the problem with ESQI measurement in general. Enjoy.


Admin,

ESQI is a funny thing. And it is flawed in so many ways.

As one of the four key areas of the ERAC business model, it is supposed to make or break the success of the employees, driving them to boost customer satisfaction scores in order to achieve promotions, etc.

Here's how it works: A sample is taken of closed contracts from a branch. Those people are called and generally asked a couple questions, usually some form of:
1. "Are you Completely Satisfied, Somewhat satisfied, Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or completely dissatisfied with the service you received?"
2. "Would you like someone at the branch to contact you?"
3. "Would you rent again from ERAC?"

I heard once that those were the three questions they were supposed to cover on every call, but (even as an employee) I was called a couple times and asked other stuff, or similar stuff in a different way.

The ESQI scores are compiled only from those who answer "completely satisfied" to question 1. No matter how the person responds to question 1, they can still request someone at the branch contact them and a printout appears on the branch printer for the BM, and some higher up gets it too, I think the ARM and the GRM. I heard that question 3 is the one that the higher-ups care about (which makes sense) and their response appeared on the printout as "definitely will rent again, probably will rent again,... etc., to definitely will not rent again."

All that sounds really good up front. Here's where I think the flaws come in:

ESQI as a measurement tool is arbitrary: People have 1 month numbers, 3 month rolling averages, and 12 month rolling average. I think the 12 month numbers tell the real story but they are usually quite a bit worse than the 3 month or 1 month numbers. I'd like to know what ERAC Warrior's 12 month number is. Last I heard, ERAC (as a company) had a 12 month rolling average of 78%. The 1 month number often shows big swings in numbers, like 65% one month and 90% the next month, the 3 month number smooths things out. Again, I think the 12 month number tells the real story. (On a side note, since turnover is so huge, I don't think anyone ever quotes the 12 month number, because "it's such a bad number and I wasn't there the whole time and it improved as soon as I got to the branch, here's the proof: a higher 3 month number." But that's just an opinion).

The second reason I think ESQI is arbitrary is because promotions and raises, etc. are supposed to be based on whether your ESQI number is at or above group average. However, I have seen this waived for "deserving" employees... while others have gone without a raise "because of the ESQI rule." So it seems to be up to someone else to decide whether or not someone should get their raise or promotion even though they throw out this measurable thing as the determining factor.

Next, ESQI is flawed because it has a crappy sample size. I don't know exactly how many, but they don't take a percentage of closed tickets, which would make sense, they take a fixed number of tickets, no matter what size of branch you are. So a small branch that writes a couple hundred tickets a month is actually judged more harshly than a larger branch that might write a thousand. As a BM of a small branch I asked my ARM about this and he said I should be proud that my ESQI number is a truer number than those of a larger branch. Yeah, I was thrilled.

ESQI is a measurement of only those who answer completely satisfied, which is a noble thing to measure. The problem is that the term completely satisfied is so obtuse that it's not a real measurement of anything except the renter's foggy memory of the entire experience of bringing their car into the shop, getting it fixed, getting a rental, etc. In theory, it's an on-the-scale-of-1-to-5 measurement of the service provided but in practice it's an on-the-scale-of-1-to-5 measurement of how the person felt about EVERYTHING: whether their own car was repaired on time, whether they liked the color of the rental car, whether they really wanted the free upgrade to the SUV they saw, etc.

How do I know this? Because question 2 asks if they would like a call from the BM. As a BM I got printouts from people who were everywhere on the range from completely satisfied to completely dissatisfied so when I called them up to ask them what we could have done better, the answer always came back something like, "oh, you did everything fine, it's just that I saw a blue SUV in your lot and asked for a free upgrade and the guy wouldn't give it to me" or something like that. In the 3 1/2 years I was a BM I NEVER ONCE RECEIVED a service complaint through this system. They were always perception complaints. I think service complaints don't get to the BM often because the person with the really bad experience doesn't want a call from someone at the branch. They just want to be left alone. So no printout.

Next, ESQI is a measure of people who answer the phone. If someone screens their calls, no matter how satisfied or dissatisfied, the branch has no idea.

The next reason ESQI is flawed is because people are asked if they will rent from ERAC again based on the definitely yes/somewhat yes/etc. model of answers and when I was a BM I had to call people and ask them why they would never rent from ERAC again even though they said they were completely satisfied and they said they wouldn't because they hoped they never got into an accident again, but if they ever did get into an accident, they definitely would. Then I would have to message my ARM and he would message the GRM and everyone would be happy and I'd have just wasted a ton of my time on a misinterpretation.

The last reason ESQI is flawed is because it's a measurement of completely satisfied only, which gives ARMs and GRMs an opportunity to say "if you could just make a few more somewhat-satisfied customers into completely satisfied customers, your number would be that much higher." And then they'd ask you how you would do it and you'd have to respond "we'll need to shake more hands at the front counter and greet people by name and we'll have to make sure we're asking everyone the 3 ESQI questions at the end of the rental." and the GRM would say, "and?" And then the self-respecting branch manager would wince internally and say "and we'll have to sell more CDW because CDW is good for ESQI." and a little part of the BM's soul would die... and they would really want to scream out: "We need more damn cars to fulfill our damn reservations that you keep telling us to take even though I know that we don't have the cars to service the rezos and I'm working on the frontline and dealing with the irate customers and you're in your office doing jack-all and spying on us with mystery shoppers to find out if we're turning down reservations and if we are we get fired." But no one who wants to keep their job would say that.

Wow, I hope the first part was well balanced. The last part got a little emotional but I'm doing much less surly now!

ERAC employees are also supposed to ask 3 ESQI questions at the end of every rental: "how was everything with our service?" "Was there anything we could improve on?" "If so, what?". That could potentially curtail customer service problems, but here's why this system doesn't work:

Employees instead ask "how was everything with the rental?" because if they ask the way they're supposed to, they get funny looks so they ask about the rental and customers say "fine" and the employee thinks they've done their job and nothing has been fixed if something was wrong. Or the employee asks "were you completely satisfied with the service?" and the customer may nod or whatever because even though there are jerky customers out there, there's also nice people who don't like confrontation. By asking this, the employee accomplishes two things: they THINK they've done their job but ignored learning anything of value, and they've unconsciously trained the customer to know that "completely satisfied" is the thing they want to hear so if they hear it again on the ESQI phone call that's their response. As well, once the employee at the counter asks the first of the three ESQI questions, and the customer answers with a nod that everything was fine with the rental, the employee then finishes up and drives the customer to wherever, ignoring a really good opportunity to find out if there was anything that could be improved. Of course the flipside to this is that employees simply stop asking because they're sick of hearing "well, the rental could be free." which I used to hear a lot and it drove me nuts because no one had any real suggestions. And employees are scared to ask because there's lots of times when you ask if there was anything you could have done better and the customer rants and rants and then you have to drive them somewhere... and it's always a long drive!

Hope this has been helpful, Admin. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the informative reply. I just got done writing a huge reply to another post so I'll make this somewhat brief.

Just a few thoughts:

When I rented, the branch employees repeatedly stared me down and said they wanted me "to be completely satisfied". They said it over and over again, like a teaching assistant who's trying to give you <wink, wink> the answers to an upcoming quiz. They do everything possible to get you to remember that phrase.

Also, I keep hearing about employees changing the telephone number on closed tickets where something went wrong so that the ESQI callers couldn't reach them. I've also heard of efforts now to prevent this.

I also can't help but think that there's something unusual with Enterprise's relationship with their customers because in a way it's really the insurance companies who are the customers, not the renters. Most Enterprise customers I suspect never really "chose" Enterprise; they were directed there by a body shop or insurance company. I wonder how this affects things in the big picture (again, sort of burnt from the big previous reply; just thinking out loud here).

Anyway, thanks again for your informative and thorough reply.

Why don't you register on the board? You'll gain a bunch of additional functionality that way and we'll remember you better.

And you don't seem very surly to me.

Admin

I had also heard about the changing phone numbers thing but a GRM told me that he gets a regular report of all wronge or out-of-service numbers called during the ESQI calls and that someone in our group had been fired for faking phone numbers. I don't know how long this has been going on for.

The "wink, wink" training at the end of the rental is rampant, and that's too bad if any real change is going to occur... Well, that's not true: Real change will only occur when you have quality information from your customers AND you have the willingness to change.

Not sure if it would be better, but I think it might, and that is to make the improvement process anonymous and accessible. Perhaps all employees would do a better job if at the end of the rental they said something like, "I hope you received good service from us. Whether you did or didn't, I would appreciate it if you would complete a five question anonymous survey online or at this special 1-800 number. It has its flaws, but I think it would give real answers, too.

You make a good point, too: asking the insurance companies and the shops for their customer satisfaction opinions would help, as well.

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the ESQI score was the percentage who chose one of the two top categories, not just the top category. If this is true, then the other 20% chose "somewhat satisfied", or lower.

Which is correct?

Admin

ESQi is only a measure of "completely satisfied". If you add the two top categories the Company is at/over 90% on a monthly basis.

ERAC has always ONLY chosen to measure "completley satisfied" as further research shows that these customers have about a 70% bias to return whereas "somewhat satisfied" drop to about 35% or so.

I always wondered if the radical price increases for rental cars between Christmas and New Years would qualify as price gouging. The State of Florida has all kinds of laws set up for things like selling ice at $5 a bag after a hurricane, etc. If I remember correctly the law is something like you can not dramatically increase prices for short term profits. Any thoughts on this? Would this be worth reporting to the Attorney General?

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I always wondered if the radical price increases for rental cars between Christmas and New Years would qualify as price gouging. The State of Florida has all kinds of laws set up for things like selling ice at $5 a bag after a hurricane, etc. If I remember correctly the law is something like you can not dramatically increase prices for short term profits. Any thoughts on this? Would this be worth reporting to the Attorney General?

I don't really have a problem with this. In economics, it's called "temporal price discrimination". Good examples are hotels charging more in the high season and less in the off-season, movie theaters offering bargain matinees, or Enterprise offering a $9.99 weekend special. Demand is much higher during the week of Christmas through New Year's, so you'd expect prices to be higher.

Actually, allowing prices to rise during hurricanes has several positive social benefits also, including:

1. Encouraging suppliers from surrounding areas to rush needed supplies to the affected area.

2. Encouraging efficient use of scarce resources.

3. Encouragaing people to plan ahead by stocking up on emergency supplies.

Prices provide a very important signal and encourage all sorts of socially beneficial behavior. There's a four thousand year history of price controls leading to shortages, which is the last thing you'd want after a hurricane.

It's fraud or bait-and-switch that bothers me, not adjusting prices because of changing demand.

Admin

Admin,
Did you ever ask to sit down and discuss your reocurring issues with the branch manager? I know he/she must have marketed to your company to make sure they where doing everything they could to retain your business. Perhaps the two of you could have come to a solution to resolve the problem, i.e. calling the manager directly to set up your reservation due to your need to have an exact car size with a certain level of fuel ready to go for you on time everytime you needed a rental. I realize your response to this would be that this should happen for every customer and believe it or not it does in most branches across the different groups. It sounds to me like you had a bad experience but that because it was never brought to the managers attention until after the fact they could not correct it for you. I realize that you made your issues plain to the MT that you were dealing with at the time but please understand that the typical MT does not have the ability or the experience to fix all of the problems of the branch and may in fact carry the negative attitudes that I see reappearing over and over on this web page. They may have spun the issue to the manager and even the area manager in a different light and it becomes a he said she said issue...once again after the fact and therefore causing us to try to compensate you financially which in your case was not going to solve your problem.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Admin,
Did you ever ask to sit down and discuss your reocurring issues with the branch manager? I know he/she must have marketed to your company to make sure they where doing everything they could to retain your business.

Thanks for your well-considered post.

Actually, no, they didn't try to market to my company. I began renting regularly from them and one of the employees invited me to apply for a corporate account. I was the only person at my company who rented from them, and I rented for an average of one or two days per month. I was probably a small fry when it comes to corporate customers.

Yes, I did try to talk with the employees. I was actually on pretty friendly terms with everyone there. I was a regular renter and I remembered them personally and they remembered me. Every time there was a problem I thought we were talking about it like colleagues trying to work together to solve a problem. I never "asked for the manager" because it never occurred to me to route around the people I was talking with. For every dishonored reservation, they always had a story ready, either about the car I had reserved had been in an accident, or the previous renter hadn't brought it back, or how my car was "ready" but the shuttle driver hadn't arrived yet, or they just ducked and dodged and weaved and didn't really give me a story.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Perhaps the two of you could have come to a solution to resolve the problem, i.e. calling the manager directly to set up your reservation due to your need to have an exact car size with a certain level of fuel ready to go for you on time everytime you needed a rental.

You're implying a couple of things that aren't true. I didn't "need to have an exact size car". I just wanted a large sedan for me and my clients. I don't know the exact class names, but anything in the "large sedan", or "premium" or "luxury" classes would have been fine, just not a giant extended cab pickup truck or SUV which are banned from San Francisco financial district parking garages. Any car in any of those three classes would have been fine. And I had a confirmed reservation for that one class.

And I didn't need "a certain level of fuel ready to go". What I needed was a non-empty tank. A half a tank or more would have been just fine. A full tank would have been perfect.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I realize your response to this would be that this should happen for every customer and believe it or not it does in most branches across the different groups. It sounds to me like you had a bad experience but that because it was never brought to the managers attention until after the fact they could not correct it for you. I realize that you made your issues plain to the MT that you were dealing with at the time but please understand that the typical MT does not have the ability or the experience to fix all of the problems of the branch and may in fact carry the negative attitudes that I see reappearing over and over on this web page. They may have spun the issue to the manager and even the area manager in a different light and it becomes a he said she said issue...once again after the fact and therefore causing us to try to compensate you financially which in your case was not going to solve your problem.

When I'm your customer, it's not my responsibility to make a judgement about the strength of your internal chain of command and decide when to "ask for the manager". The people I was talking to seemed perfectly competent and capable and the stories they were telling me indicated that the failures I was experiencing were the result of things beyond the branch's control. It didn't seem to me that insulting these employees by demanding to see the manager, who would tell me the same story, would do any good.

Also, your customer service representatives should have 100% of the authority and resources to prevent and solve these sorts of problems. It's not the customer's fault if he didn't "ask for the manager". I don't think renting cars is all that complicated; if they say they're out of cars and it's not their fault (again), why should I be responsible for mapping and navigating their management hierarchy?

I'm also not really much of an "I want to see the manager" sort of guy. I go into things expecting people are competent and will do the right thing and I think it's rude to be a demanding customer and insult the staff with the implication they're incompetent or uncooperative by demanding to see the manager. It's just not my style. I make a reservation, I want to pick up my car without a struggle.

I did, however, call the local regional office at one point and ask if there was something I wasn't understanding about the "reservation" process. I explained how I always showed up on time with a confirmed reservation and most of the time they dishonored it. I was told that after I made my reservation, I should call up the branch and ask them to "reserve" that car for me, which I thought sounded sort of like a "double secret reservation". This wasn't helpful.

Again, thanks for your well-considered posting. I too wish things could have been resolved easily and at the local level, but I tried a dozen times. Even when two vice-presidents met with me (when the site went up, it got their attention), they still were uncooperative (as for quietly overcharging corporate renters, I was told "Sometimes you get screwed, sometimes we get screwed!"; not exactly customer-focused, I think).

Admin

I was told "Sometimes you get screwed, sometimes we get screwed!"; not exactly customer-focused, I think).

Uh, no, they never get screwed.

They picked the rate, you didn't.

[team player]

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

I don't really have a problem with this. In economics, it's called "temporal price discrimination". Good examples are hotels charging more in the high season and less in the off-season, movie theaters offering bargain matinees, or Enterprise offering a $9.99 weekend special. Demand is much higher during the week of Christmas through New Year's, so you'd expect prices to be higher.

Actually, allowing prices to rise during hurricanes has several positive social benefits also, including:

1. Encouraging suppliers from surrounding areas to rush needed supplies to the affected area.

2. Encouraging efficient use of scarce resources.

3. Encouragaing people to plan ahead by stocking up on emergency supplies.

Prices provide a very important signal and encourage all sorts of socially beneficial behavior. There's a four thousand year history of price controls leading to shortages, which is the last thing you'd want after a hurricane.

It's fraud or bait-and-switch that bothers me, not adjusting prices because of changing demand.

Admin

Admin..I have to disagree with you here....being from Florida where there are hurricanes, price gouging should not be encouraged. However, what many do fail to understand is that price gouging is really only looked at when the items in question are NECESSARY for general living (i.e. food, shelter, clothing, etc.). The last time I checked, you didn't need a rental car to survive. The price hike between Christmas and New Years is simple supply and demand. You don't want to pay 129.00/day for a Tahoe? fine the next guy in line will. I can't say that I agreed with this, but when I was with the company it wasn't frowned upon that my avg daily rate was over 45/day (it helped my paycheck). I almost made 60,000 that year! whoa not bad for working almost 80 week!! not!!!