I traveled to Austin for a consulting engagement and arrived at AVIS Preferred to pick up my rental car. Normally, my name is on the Preferred board, where you can just find your name, identify the space in which your car is waiting, and off you go. Every now and then, however, I find my name absent from the board and I have to go into the office to get my rental agreement. On this trip, the AVIS agent was most apologetic and very helpful in order to get me going. Within just a few minutes, she handed me a rental agreement and gave me the space number.
Although I rarely look at the booking card, I did on this occasion and noticed that the name was J Petersen. Hmm, that’s not right. I alerted the representative and she went to work on the problem. After a few minutes, she said, “I see the problem, you rented your car yesterday and already turned it in this afternoon.” I was in Atlanta the previous day and certainly couldn’t have rented a car in Austin. But I remembered getting an AVIS email receipt earlier that day, something which I normally receive after a rental, not before. I showed the electronic receipt to the AVIS rep and after a few additional minutes, she figured out that J Petersen got my car the day before and that is why I had received a receipt. A manager came and cleared out the charges from the previous day and they gave me a new rental agreement that said D Peterson and … a BMW. Sweet!
These kinds of issues do happen from time to time. As always, we should remain Grounded, and not get upset when things go wrong. Most people are very helpful and want to do the right thing and if we “show our butt” in a situation, it just makes it harder for them to do their job. Now if you are truly being treated badly in a situation where you are in the right, then by all means, stick up for yourself, while having honesty and respect for others. If a service provider is rude or unprofessional, you are not required to return that behavior. You can retaliate by how you tip or whether you give that entity repeat business.
This episode is consistent with the service I receive from AVIS and I reward them with my loyalty. What do you need to do to engender loyalty with your customers? What are you doing right now that is specifically turning loyal customers away that you need to identify and eliminate?
David is an international speaker, executive coach, serial entrepreneur, and shipwreck survivor. He is the bestselling author of Grounded (Little River, 2016). If you’re interested in David’s expertise in the areas of decision-making in a crisis, leadership, and metacognition, please get in touch here.