Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Avis Needs Some Customer Service Tips

When you do business with Bev, you need to bring your "A" Game because I have lived long enough to know the difference between good, mediocre and bad customer service.

In the past 24 hours, Avis RDU has shown me why the Company is #8 on the Top 10 Car Rental Services list for 2016. It all started when my grandson informed me he left his phone in our Avis rental car upon returning from a trip on Labor Day.  Whether or not you think my grandson was irresponsible for leaving it in the vehicle or I, as his grandmother, was irresponsible for giving a cell phone to a nine-year-old is IRRELEVANT.  The point is how Avis RDU responded after that has driven me to write this post.  Ahhhhh....the power of blogging and social media.  Now instead of me complaining and letting it fall on deaf ears, I have the potential to reach thousands of people who may think twice about doing business with them.


So when we discovered the cell phone was missing I started calling the car rental place.  After getting through their horrible automation and speaking to people who weren't in the location I was calling, I finally got to someone who swore to me they would look for the phone and call me back to let me know if they found it.  


Well, 18 calls later, no one has had the decency to return a call and update me on the status of the lost cell phone.  18 calls!!!  You would think someone would just call you back to keep you from calling.  


After the 18th call, I decided to drop by Avis RDU to speak to a manager to find out why they had such poor customer service.  Of course, the manager I spoke with (Connie) said she just couldn't believe no one would call me back and it was so unlike the designated person (Brenda), who was the one I managed to speak to briefly.  And she sounded like she had an attitude---as if I was disturbing her day.


Oh, and I did learn the car had been re-rented Labor Day evening at 10pm---a full three HOURS after I called.  And I also learned from Connie that the vehicle could've been put on hold while they did a thorough search.


To put it all in perspective, this post isn't about a lost cell phone, it's about business and customer service which Avis RDU has certainly NOT PASSED THE TEST.


Years ago, they had a commercial admitting to being #2 behind Hertz, which made them try harder.  Today they don't even rank in my book.

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