This Thread Is Probably Going To Start Up A Stir But Here It Goes...

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

I strongly disagree here. A car rental company can dial-in its occupancy rate to whatever it wants by adjusting pricing, fleet size and controlling the flow of reservations. Every company can raise or lower it at will. The tricky part is that while a higher occupancy is more profitable, it disappoints customers more often. Enterprise has decided that higher profits and more disappointed customers is a balance they're willing to accept.

And whenever Enterprise gets accused of this, they immediately start blowing smoke with all sorts of excuses like "Sometimes customers keep cars longer than they said they would", always trying to divert blame to some random event rather than to the fact that they're trying to raise occupancy. It's a very effective strategy until somebody really starts to hold their feet to the fire.

Nicely done. I stayed with Enterprise because they kept explaining that all the problems I was having were just a fluke, the result of random bad luck. If I had left earlier, you'd be here accusing me of not having a large enough statistical sample. But I stayed, and now you're criticizing me for not leaving earlier.

I know this isn't true for two reasons. First, I've now got almost 100 rentals with which to compare. Second, I've got the over 58,000 postings here with which to compare. Show me any other car rental company who has anywhere near as many complaints that Enterprise does. In fact, I'll bet that over 95% of all Internet car rental complaints are directed at Enterprise. That's a market share that money can't buy.

I'll bet the managers at every other car rental company thank their lucky stars daily that they don't have a site about them like Failing Enterprise.

Weren't you the guy who not too long ago was bashing me by falsely claiming that I was "always bragging" about my education? I guess it's OK if you mention it, though.

I thought you had like 60 rentals to compare things to...now you have a 100. And you are pulling from your OWN expereinces with 1 erac location. That loaction was not run well. What if you had went to another lcoation and they had a much better batting average? What if the rental car company you go to now, had the marketshare that enterprise currently has? Do you honestly think you wouldn't have run into the EXACT same problems that you encountered at erac? And how many of those 58,000 postings are confirmed to have been posted by actual customers and not former or current employees talking shit about their co-workers, to themselves, and about religion or politics? I'm curious as to what the breakdown is on that...but of course you can't provide that.

As for mentioning your education....You like to use it as a condescending tool to utilize to try and show your superiority. I was simply making light of the fact that you have mentioned it fairly often in the past, yet you often seem to forget the concepts that you should have learned while achieving it.

?????, when I worked at the airport location, I saw many times where customers were waiting forever in line at erac competitors just to be told that the rental car company overbooked and it was a busy holiday season. Guess where many of those people ended up renting a car from? The same thing happens to enterprise too. We were well overbooked on some holidays and some customers had to go to another company. That is the car rental industry. You're pretty much coming from only ONE perspective: the business traveler. Companies like Hertz caters to those type of customers. Enterprise has not yet mastered servicing that customer. They focus on ins. replacement, body shop/dealer replacement, and retail. Their corporate business was growing when I was there, but it was a new facet for them. Historically, they never went after customers like you...who want to get in and out with no hassle. They focused on the relationship building. And as lame as it seems sometimes, erac became very successful because of that philosophy. They do need to catch up to the times. Sure. I would have loved to see how you would be reacting if you were one of those retail customers waiting in line at Hertz instead of the business customer cutting to the front of the line. Then maybe your perfect batting average in renting cars with your new company wouldn't be so flawless. ?????, you simply went to a rental car company that didn't have you as their prime target renter. When normal people don't have their needs met, they go elsewhere to someone who can. Simple as that. They don't start up a website and dedicate all free time to running it. Only ????? ??????? does that.

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

If what you're saying is true, then the 93% of Enterprise's business that comes from insurance replacement customers always comes ahead of those customers who have reservations and that reservations are filled only on a best-available basis. Which means they're not even really "reservations".

It sounds like Enterprise has redefined the word "reservation" to suit themselves and forgotten to tell their customers that it now means "come in and we'll what we can do". That's fraud, of course...

?????, I hate to break this to you, but being the business traveler renter, YOU are bumped to the front of the line before other renter types at the company you now rent your cars from. The company you go to now, targets people like you. YOU are their core business just as insurance and service replacement is enterprise's. While you were priority number 2 at enterprise and an insurance renter may have taken over priority number 1, you are now priority number 1 at the rental car company you go to now, and that retail or service replacement customer will slip to number 2 just so you can get a car.

All companies put their bread and butter customers before the other ones. It sucks...especially for the other customers...but that is reality. You just chose the wrong rental car company for the needs you desired met. You demand that you, the business traveler, be put to the front of the line, but erac grew to what it is today be placing ins. replacement customer first. It is about time erac branches out and they have for some years with their corporate rentals. Is that a flawless program? Absolutely not.

?????, if I'm craving a Bic Mac, I don't go to Arby's and demand that they make me one. Arby's is targeting a different customer base than what I crave that particular moment. This is what happened to you. It is that simple. Does erac have problems? Yes. But, should customers seek out the services that meet their individual needs. Absolutely.

[Captain Fucking Bleedgreen]

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

And whenever Enterprise gets accused of this, they immediately start blowing smoke with all sorts of excuses like "Sometimes customers keep cars longer than they said they would", always trying to divert blame to some random event rather than to the fact that they're trying to raise occupancy. It's a very effective strategy until somebody really starts to hold their feet to the fire.

That felt like an implication that I'm trying to bob and weave which is not the case, I just don't have the exact percentage you're asking for. I know we strive for high occupancy rates and I think when you hit 90% it gets harder to provide quality customer service and honor last minute rentals from bodyshops as well as reservations etc. What's your assessment of reasonable occupancy rates and justification for them?

I'm interested in profitability. Customer service is important because repeat business will only lead to higher profits, which leads to my end goal: job stability. You start cutting into profits and companies start cutting employees. Employees have a vested interest in the form of profit sharing, promotions and job security.

Show me any other car rental company who has anywhere near as many complaints that Enterprise does. In fact, I'll bet that over 95% of all Internet car rental complaints are directed at Enterprise.

Show me another rental company with a complaint site administrator who is willing funnel an equivalent amount of energy and funding into the site and you'll find it. Regardless of how you downplay the background work of this site, it is time-consuming to read and respond to as many of the posts as you do and maintain and constantly try to improve it, you're driven by feeling personally wronged which leads you to relentlessly refine this site.

Weren't you the guy who not too long ago was bashing me by falsely claiming that I was "always bragging" about my education? I guess it's OK if you mention it, though.

I don't think you have to mention it, it's evident from some of your posts. All that should matter to this discussion board is if you can contribute with a rational train of thought, not whether anyone has earned a master's. Posters may have visceral reactions when they feel condescended to; it takes a strong intellect to breakdown a complicated issue to easily understood terms without appearing as if you're pandering to the ignorant.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

That felt like an implication that I'm trying to bob and weave which is not the case, I just don't have the exact percentage you're asking for. I know we strive for high occupancy rates and I think when you hit 90% it gets harder to provide quality customer service and honor last minute rentals from bodyshops as well as reservations etc. What's your assessment of reasonable occupancy rates and justification for them?

By controlling reservation flow, fleet size and pricing, Enterprise can dial-in whatever occupancy rate they want. With a higher occupancy rate, it's more profitable but more likely to run out of cars, particularly if a reservation doesn't really reserve anything. With a lower occupancy, there's less profit (you're paying for cars that are just sitting on the lot) but you make your customers happier (reservations are honored and there's a greater selection).

What's reasonable? What occupancy level do the other national chains maintain? They seem to be able to solve this problem effectively.

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

I'm interested in profitability. Customer service is important because repeat business will only lead to higher profits, which leads to my end goal: job stability. You start cutting into profits and companies start cutting employees. Employees have a vested interest in the form of profit sharing, promotions and job security.

That's quite understandable, but actions taken to improve short-term profitability (running tight) might harm long-term profitability (your company earns a reputation for disappointing its customers). I've got no problem with Enterprise being profitable, just so long as they don't do it by scamming customers and then lying about it.

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

Show me another rental company with a complaint site administrator who is willing funnel an equivalent amount of energy and funding into the site and you'll find it. Regardless of how you downplay the background work of this site, it is time-consuming to read and respond to as many of the posts as you do and maintain and constantly try to improve it, you're driven by feeling personally wronged which leads you to relentlessly refine this site.

That's fair; I have become motivated by the sense of community here and have been putting some work into it. But still, how come no other rental car company has any site even remotely similar?

Failing Enterprise started off as a one-page web site and as soon as it got indexed by Google I started getting all this e-mail that said "You think it sucks being a customer at Enteprise, you should try working there!". Two months later, I built a simple discussion board and it took off. My efforts notwithstanding, there was a real need for this site and I just happened to stumble into it.

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

I don't think you have to mention it, it's evident from some of your posts. All that should matter to this discussion board is if you can contribute with a rational train of thought, not whether anyone has earned a master's. Posters may have visceral reactions when they feel condescended to; it takes a strong intellect to breakdown a complicated issue to easily understood terms without appearing as if you're pandering to the ignorant.

I'll take your advice to heart.

It appears to me that many of the counterarguments made here just don't hold up to even casual scrutiny (again, in my opinion). It seems as though they are routinely parroted and are designed to "feel" right, but just don't hold any water. I can understand how my refuting an argument that I feel isn't valid can be appear to be condescending; I wish I could find a way that it wouldn't.

I might even be adding some condescencion to replies when I feel I'm arguing with someone whom I feel is trying to use bombast and verbal abuse to "win" and argument when their ideas are lacking. I hang out with a lot of scientists and lawyers; I'm used to weak arguments being quickly shredded.

[Captain Fucking Bleedgreen]

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

By controlling reservation flow, fleet size and pricing, Enterprise can dial-in whatever occupancy rate they want. With a higher occupancy rate, it's more profitable but more likely to run out of cars, particularly if a reservation doesn't really reserve anything. With a lower occupancy, there's less profit (you're paying for cars that are just sitting on the lot) but you make your customers happier (reservations are honored and there's a greater selection).

you answer my question by redirecting with the same question? Agreed there is a balance, but you can't expect me to give you specifics and rationale if you can't produce the same.

What's reasonable? What occupancy level do the other national chains maintain? They seem to be able to solve this problem effectively.

They don't handle the volume of insurance/bodyshop/dealership business we do...which are volatile and ebb and flow with their business and our relationships/business agreements. In other words, it's a moving target and additional variable that we deal with that other rental companies don't to the same extent.

That's quite understandable, but actions taken to improve short-term profitability (running tight) might harm long-term profitability (your company earns a reputation for disappointing its customers). I've got no problem with Enterprise being profitable, just so long as they don't do it by scamming customers and then lying about it.

If we had a terrible reputation for disappointing a significant amount of our customers regularly, we wouldn't get repeat business or have such strong ties to our referral sources. I know you're talking about the customers that have posted on your site, but that's not representative of an accurate sampling of our total customer base.

That's fair; I have become motivated by the sense of community here and have been putting some work into it. But still, how come no other rental car company has any site even remotely similar?

I don't know of anyone willing to invest the time and effort you do in a venture like this.

It appears to me that many of the counterarguments made here just don't hold up to even casual scrutiny (again, in my opinion). It seems as though they are routinely parroted and are designed to "feel" right, but just don't hold any water. I can understand how my refuting an argument that I feel isn't valid can be appear to be condescending; I wish I could find a way that it wouldn't.

It wouldn't if you didn't imply a need for people to intellectualize their arguments to the point of presenting you with scientific data or specific percentage and fleet mix variables to justify simple statements.

I don't think you always condescend on purpose, I think you expect people to rise to the occasion. But it can read as condescension when you smugly say that an argument doesn't hold water if it doesn't hold up to scientific scrutiny, if that was the rationale for all debate, you'd have to be a scientist just to have a casual conversation. I think it's a personality/thought process tic of yours, you expect people to deeply examine their own arguments.

I might even be adding some condescension to replies when I feel I'm arguing with someone whom I feel is trying to use bombast and verbal abuse to "win" and argument when their ideas are lacking. I hang out with a lot of scientists and lawyers; I'm used to weak arguments being quickly shredded.

I'm not advocating personal attacks or asking you to "dumb yourself down" to respond in kind. Pointing out that an idea lacks substance is enough to prompt capable people to rise to the occasion and others to resort to personal attacks.

[Captain Fucking Bleedgreen]

Originally Posted by reality

And ?????....the fact that you hang out with a bunch of scientists and lawyers.....what a shock. These are groups that also have a tendency to be condescending pricks.

That's a bit reaching reality, I'm not advocating stereotyping. People have continually posted trying to categorize me given my demographics, community and the fact that I work for ERAC. Trying to fit someone in a box based on profession is over-generalizing.

?????, your target audience on this site are not scientists and lawyers...they are people that currenty or formerly worked in retail and had to deal with arrogant dicks...

good point, I agree that the readership needs to be taken into account anytime you write for mass consumption.

You so conveniently dismiss your opposition's arguments as weak but I've read so many strong points from these very same people that you label as poor conversationalists. This is another reasons people give you shit. ?????, again instead of whining and getting all defensive when someone calls you a name....try and self reflect and ask yourself: "Maybe I am being a dick. Maybe, that's why people are calling me one." But, I've met and known guys like you. You are almost incapable of realizing your own personality flaws and are completely ignorant to how they come across.

anyone that posts here regularly gets postings disagreeing with them and many of those posts resort to "douchebag," "dick" or similar terms of endearment. I don't agree that just because a few people all you a dick it must be true. People have posted that they think I'm a bitch and then ten minutes later posts agreeing with what I've said or supporting my stance, the public is fickle.

I think that repeatedly posting "?????" is trying to push buttons and get a reactionary post from Admin. Even when I'm disagreeing, I still respect what he has to say, realizing we can't agree on everything. On occasion he stereotypes me, but no one's perfect and I don't take it personally; it just means something I said got to him enough to try and dismiss my thoughts, he always comes back around.

I respect anyone that can post a rational discussion and have a sense of humor at the same time, one of the reason's slave no more is one of my all-time favorite posters. Your posts in this thread support the fact that you can have an effective debate as well, I just think when people get heated they try to push buttons, I'm not an exception...I just try and catch when I might be resorting to that. I like reading your posts.

[Captain Fucking Bleedgreen]

Originally Posted by slave no more

"Fraud"...

dude, don't you remember the realitycheck argument? Paragraphs, man, paragraphs! It enhances readability. =-)

[slave no more]

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

dude, don't you remember the realitycheck argument? Paragraphs, man, paragraphs! It enhances readability. =-)

What can I say? I am a grammatical rebel. I be one bad Mo Fo!

[Captain Fucking Bleedgreen]

Originally Posted by reality

You give the administrator WAY too much credit. You always have. Not sure why....You seem smarter than that. And that's not a shot at you. Again, he's not called a douche bag because someone disagrees with him. He is called one because he acts like one. You may not see it, but many others do. He hangs out with scientists and lawyers, claiming that weak arguments get shredded, so he created this board so he can attempt to flaunt his intellect... maybe because the people he chooses to hang with shred him all the time, and he needs to try and feel important somehow. But he only makes himself look like a fool. Again, if you can't see that, I don't know what to say.

Fair enough.

And you have to wonder why he gets so heated over my comments and the comments of others. Maybe they are hitting home. Honestly, he doesn't have to be an arrogant prick...he chooses to be. Or maybe he really can't help it. Who knows? I get very amused by people like him. They try and beat their chest as hard as they can throwing their "intellect" around, but when people call them out on their obvious bullshit, they can't back anything up and make attempts to dismiss what you have to say. It's a laugh. Can you really not see how he does that...often?

I've said that I think some of what he says reads as condescending, but I also think it's defensive. If I were attacked all day long, I'd probably turn a bit more arrogant (I've already been called that several times on the board) and possibly start condescending to people as a defense-mechanism to protect my sanity. I can't guess how I'd react because I haven't been there.

Maybe I have a soft spot for intellectuals in general because of a couple of friends that are brilliant but don't have the best soft skills. I love to debate when I care about something, but debating with them can turn into nit-picking intricacies and one of them has little regard for other's feelings when he's debating, just wants to get his point across.

I'm not sure why either.

JFCB, let me ask you this...The administrator claims that the purpose of this site is to improve enterprise, but the threads that get the most attention on the board seem to be the individual group threads, where there is nothing but name dropping and gossip. He calls out enterprise for not following their mission statement, yet he inconsistently follows his own terms of use. He claims to be open minded regarding enterprise, yet whenever a customer posts their story, he swoops in to defend them and states that the branch employee must surely be trying to scam that customer. He claims he doesn't moderate the board, yet he deletes posts all the time, gives warnings to anyone that uses the word "gay," and always seems to find that one question about some usability function of the board when it is embedded in some random thread.

agree completely with everything in this paragraph, but you have to consider the source as well, he finds usability questions because maintaining and improving this site seems to be his passion. He enjoys it, therefore looks for what interests him. Just like you and I only respond to shit that interests us.

I don't blame him for not responding to everything. "gay" references may be provocative to admin because of his community, which may cause a personal sensitivity; we all have different things that agitate us. I can't speak on his behalf, but it makes sense to me.

I can not agree more with your statement about customers and his rampant defense of every customer post on this site. His motivation is to incur more posts, I'm not surprised but I agree it's excessive. Thank you for pointing out his blind allegiance to all customer stories and the underpinnings of his support which usually are: ERAC is trying to "pull one over" on a customer again, I don't feel that is usually the case.

When you're asking why he does those things, you may want to examine what motivates him: more posts, a sort of "atonement" if you will for his mishandled rentals at ERAC and his own convictions. We all have things that irritate us, his happen to be gay, women and racial bashing. good for him, he may be overly sensitive as you've cited, but he's also got an investment in this site and a duty to try and keep the content somewhat regulated. That's why he doesn't refer to it as a hate site, he calls it a "complaint" site.

He calls many that challenge his logic childish and incapable of an adult conversation (regardless of whether they call him a name or not), yet when he gets pressed, he either: changes the subject, dodges the point, shines his flashlight on a minute part of a post, dismisses the poster altogether, ignores it, runs away, hides behind his terms of use that he doesn't consistently follow, or like he did several months ago, makes it a requirement to register, thus locking his board to the majority of the people questioning him. These are precisely the reasons he receives ridicule and is called names. I'm sorry, JFCB, the guy you give the benefit of the doubt to often, is a huge hippocrite and an arrogant prick. I don't say that because he disagrees with me. I say it because he is one.

well maybe it's my own inattentiveness to your previous posts that led me to believe you're pushing buttons. I don't remember reading your stuff before this thread... I see you're using my old acronym just as often as you used "?????." Must be your writing style, I apologize for not noticing/remembering it.

He sits back and hides behind his freedom of speech line whenever some employee is mentioned by name in a nasty way and whenever some female erac employee gets her name thrashed by being called a whore. Yet he deletes postings by someone that had the usernme "?????isatool." He can dish it and allow it to be dished out about someone else, but just doesn't like receiving it back. It's very difficult to respect someone like that, and again, I'm surprised you can.

I don't read the "????? is a tool" posts, so I have no idea what would've been in it that would've caused him to delete it. I doubt it was deleted solely because of the username, but if so that does suck. I hate the whore posts, I wish people were more accountable for their posts and less hateful when their own identities are confidential.

Originally Posted by Captain Fucking Bleedgreen

Fair enough.

I've said that I think some of what he says reads as condescending, but I also think it's defensive. If I were attacked all day long, I'd probably turn a bit more arrogant (I've already been called that several times on the board) and possibly start condescending to people as a defense-mechanism to protect my sanity. I can't guess how I'd react because I haven't been there.

Maybe I have a soft spot for intellectuals in general because of a couple of friends that are brilliant but don't have the best soft skills. I love to debate when I care about something, but debating with them can turn into nit-picking intricacies and one of them has little regard for other's feelings when he's debating, just wants to get his point across.

I'm not sure why either.

agree completely with everything in this paragraph, but you have to consider the source as well, he finds usability questions because maintaining and improving this site seems to be his passion. He enjoys it, therefore looks for what interests him. Just like you and I only respond to shit that interests us.

I don't blame him for not responding to everything. "gay" references may be provocative to admin because of his community, which may cause a personal sensitivity; we all have different things that agitate us. I can't speak on his behalf, but it makes sense to me.

I can not agree more with your statement about customers and his rampant defense of every customer post on this site. His motivation is to incur more posts, I'm not surprised but I agree it's excessive. Thank you for pointing out his blind allegiance to all customer stories and the underpinnings of his support which usually are: ERAC is trying to "pull one over" on a customer again, I don't feel that is usually the case.

When you're asking why he does those things, you may want to examine what motivates him: more posts, a sort of "atonement" if you will for his mishandled rentals at ERAC and his own convictions. We all have things that irritate us, his happen to be gay, women and racial bashing. good for him, he may be overly sensitive as you've cited, but he's also got an investment in this site and a duty to try and keep the content somewhat regulated. That's why he doesn't refer to it as a hate site, he calls it a "complaint" site.

well maybe it's my own inattentiveness to your previous posts that led me to believe you're pushing buttons. I don't remember reading your stuff before this thread... I see you're using my old acronym just as often as you used "?????." Must be your writing style, I apologize for not noticing/remembering it.

I don't read the "????? is a tool" posts, so I have no idea what would've been in it that would've caused him to delete it. I doubt it was deleted solely because of the username, but if so that does suck. I hate the whore posts, I wish people were more accountable for their posts and less hateful when their own identities are confidential.

You are way more tolerant of guys like him, and that is why he probably considers you his favorite poster....because more and more people are seeing him for what he is. Personally, I think he sucks.

Defensiveness is an extremely amusing thing on this board. I never understood why complete strangers get so pissed when someone they don't know says something to them. Or why people need to boast about how much education, status,or money they have. One thing I've learned from this site is that a lot of insecure people go to discussion boards.

I understand what motivates him in picking and choosing what he wants to enforce, and it is his board, but when he spends all his energy calling out a company for inconsistently following their mission statement when he can't even follow his own....he only shoots himself in his foot and makes himself lose the respect he so craves. When you say he tries and keep the content somewhat regulated....he hand selects what it is he wants regulated. Again, it's his board, but when he leaves up water cooler gossip, but nitpicks crap that paints himself in a bad light, what does that tell the posters on his site. He can dish it and sit back while actual names get dragged through the mud, but throws a hissy when the flashlight is on him. Again, it's difficult for most people to respect someone like that.

He should really use this site as a tool to learn from and recognize the things he does. Because it surely is not going to make enterprise recognize what they do.