It’s rare that I find really poor service. From time to time I get annoyed with the service at Tesco where the cashier sits back and watches you pack your bags without helping or assistants that more often than not, doesn’t actually speak English. I’ve actually come to expect it and only shop there if I really have no other choice. There is one other company where I find the service so poor I groan when someone tells me I have to deal with them. This is Enterprise rent a car.
I recently had a small issue with my car and needed to get it sorted before it became a more serious issue. Taking my car to the main dealers gave me a great example of good customer service at Land Rover looks like. Welcoming, friendly and informative which is the opposite of the interactions I had with Enterprise rent a horse and cart. Being given a rental car while mine is being worked on was fine by me but from the moment the cheeky chap met me I knew this would be an experience to forget. He swaggered over to me and told me he was taking me to the office to get the car. On the short trip over he told me how tired he was and that he does a 60-hour week with just 30 minutes lunch a day. I remember thinking that maybe this was something I really didn’t need to hear about as a customer but I sympathized with his terrible plight and we arrived at what can only be described as the Beirut branch.
He decided to park in an area where they wash the crates they claim pass for hire cars, which meant I had no choice but to step into a deep puddle of dirty water. So, with my damp tootsies I walk into a waiting area that had all the creature comforts of Nosferatu’s coffin.
I glanced over to the other poor bastards waiting around in this hellhole and took my place at the counter. I was asked for the normal name and address details and then he asked me for the name of my employer. When I asked why he needed this he said it was, “ To make sure you don’t nick our car”. Nice I thought and gave him the name of a Kebab house I once went to in 1988. He asked me to sign the agreement paperwork and as I did so the cleaner arrived with what can only be described as the worlds noisiest vacuum cleaner, which was then repeatedly bashed against my feet. I looked down and at the cleaner who didn’t even look up, let alone say sorry for trying to hoover me up.
I completed the paperwork feeling very angry and disgusted by my experience and as I was reading the small print it was snatched from my eyes with such speed I’m surprised that it didn’t singe at the edges. It was at this point that my imagination run riot. I imagined myself in a Japanese action movie with spinning kicks and back flips beating seven bells of brown stuff out of this cocky and rude man. Sadly and luckily for him I held it in and just followed him to the garage area where I was introduced to my jalopy.
I was talked through all the scratches and dents that was caused by the previous user and then shown the fuel gauge which he chose to describe as 4/8th from half way and that if I don’t bring it back the same I had to agree to a refuel price that resembled that of the Space Shuttle. I agreed and begged to leave the garage and this horrible man. However he had one other trick up his grubby sleeve. The car was inside a garage and behind a man cleaning another car. He said, “there you go” and gave the car keys. As he turned on his heels I asked him if he expected me to arrange the removal of the other car? He looked at my like I taken a large turd on his mothers head and grabbed the keys back shouting at the cleaner to move the car he was cleaning. When a gap appeared he took the car out and parked it across the other side of the forecourt. I chased after my hire car and when I finally caught up with it my cheeky chap got out and gave me a quick, “Cheers” and walked off into the distance.
I got into the car and drove home thinking that I really should share my experiences with their customer service department which is harder than you would imagine as the website doesn’t list a number or email address to offer such feedback. Maybe they couldn’t cope with all the glowing and gushing letters of recommendation?
Still, I could right something in my blog…
M
