Want Luxury?

As I tell my Mom, if you want luxury you have to pay for it. Tonight I had a guy rag on how at the bigger airports they have the club thing where a member walks to the club bus to be driven to a lot full of cars, picks one out, and drives off without any questions or signatures required. He said it was so nice and only took 19 minutes to go through the whole process.

I informed the man my cars are right outside the door and I take a lot less than 19 minutes to rent out a car, more like 2 minutes to rent and 1 minute to walk to the car. I do give the available options of vehicles I have at the moment to customers. They also have the option to look at cars before I rent it to them. I would have to go with them if they wish to sit in it or open the trunk. We do not hand over keys to people without a contract.

Though with this club deal, I have had unhappy customers. One is the fact that one does not have a contract given so the customer has no proof of what the contract says. Two is the fact those club rental agents do not check driver's licenses, just the club card. Three is mistakes made by those club agents that take time to fix when they return the car.

I had a customer who rented in another city who did not use the rate on reservation and he demanded to know why the return receipt price was so high. His profile had a company contract rate typed in so when the other city rented the car, they used his company rate instead of his cheaper reserved rate.

Another rental from another city was also not told what he was paying either and ended up calling the customer complaint line to reach a compromise with them. He was also was on his corporate rate that charged per mile with a cheap rate.

I had several customers demand to know why at another city he rented a car with his expired license and I refused him a car. Because I actually check expiration dates on licenses.

Mistakes made by other locations that give me problems when I return the car are the wrong car attached to the car, which must be fixed by the renting location. The situation gets worse when the car I have the keys to is wrongly placed on 2 of their contracts. Another is no car attached to the contract at all, making me call the renting location to add car who do not always correctly add the car to the contract. Sometimes I get a manager at the other location who just fixes the contract so I can print a receipt for the customer. If I am placed on hold too long, I do give the customer the option to receive their receipt in the mail.

One does pay for luxury when mistakes are made. We are human after all. Post later. Genie out.