As a frequent traveler, I get the opportunity to accumulate travel award points. This summer, while in Colorado to teach at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Colorado, I rented a car so I could travel up to the mountains to fish and visit with friends.
Since I had many American Express mileage points, I used some to get two $200 AVIS certificates. When it was time to turn in the car, the service center counters were backed up 10 deep. I figured since I was such a loyal AVIS customer I would be able to call them, give them the certificate numbers and they would credit me the $400.
My initial contact with AVIS was favorable, it appeared they would do exactly as I expected. However, I was told nothing could be done until the car was checked in through their system, which could be up to 48 hours after the car was physically returned. That seemed a bit antiquated, but hey, maybe they haven’t been investing in current technology.
Two days later, my adventure began. I won’t waste your time by telling you exactly how many attempts I made to reach AVIS or the inept customer service they provided on the off chance I did actually get to speak with someone. I will summarize by saying AVIS must be reading email by way of carrier pigeon and they cannot have any way of knowing the value of an individual renter.
Here’s the deal: if you look close, really close, you will find a place on the AmEx certificate which indicates you can only use the certificate if you go to a specific URL to do so. Every other vendor I use allows you to enter certificates on the regular booking site and I had no reason to believe AVIS would be different. But I must admit, even though AVIS clearly DOES NOT WANT YOU TO NOTICE IT, it did indicate the alternate booking site needed to be used. What possible reason could there be for this other than they are hoping you couldn’t use the site, rendering your certificates useless?
I had been sending AVIS emails about all of the car rentals I was making with their competitors while I was waiting for AVIS to address my question about the certificates, but had never received any response. I did get one call, but only later did I realize it was from AVIS as the call was from a blocked number. After multiple attempts, I was finally able to get an AVIS supervisor on the phone. After a discussion, I was firmly told unless the reservation was made from the alternate site, there was no way they could honor the certificates.
OK. Either they are incapable of honoring the certificates because their antiquated systems cannot handle it or they just don’t want to. I work mostly with financial institutions and the companies that supply software and services to FIs and if a customer is upset and accesses the call center, the FI has access to the full financial picture of said customer. They know how profitable they are. (Note: If you are a banker and you don’t have this type of profitability view across all channels, you need to upgrade your core system … now).
Apparently AVIS does not. Because, I rent a lot of cars. And up until recently, virtually all of those cars were rented from AVIS. I haven’t done the math, but I am guessing my annual spend with AVIS was in the low 5 figures. Surely that is enough of a reason for AVIS to be interested in keeping me as a customer? Nope.
You didn’t make the reservation on our special, hope you never find it website, so you are out of luck.
So I did the only thing I can do in this situation: I voted with my feet.
As I write this, I am arriving at Denver International airport. I will de-plane, get my bag and walk past the AVIS bus to the Hertz bus instead. But I wonder, how many customers do you lose simply because you are not in the position to “do the right thing”?
Do you have rules that make it difficult for your customers, particularly your best, most profitable customers, to do business with you? If so, then identify those and eliminate them. Empower your people to solve problems and make reasonable resolutions on the spot but always in the knowledge of the value of the customer who stands in front of you. I am not special, but I do spend a lot of money on rental cars … and also write a blog about innovation. It seems like AVIS should be more diligent to keep customers like me.