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| - On 3/21, the airport location failed miserably. Their computer system crashed. i understand system failures occur on occasion; I have no idea how often it occurs for Hertz. This may have been once in eons for them but the fact is that it happened to us. That wouldn't even be the biggest issue if their staff had handled the situation professionally, courteously, and with some grace. But that didn't happen.
The "special folks", the frequent renters with their Hertz rewards system in place (of which we were not one of), have their own line. I get that. However, in a crisis (system failure counts as a crisis), someone on the front line (a manager, perhaps) should step up and figure out how to handle the growing crowd in line, most in the "non-reward" line. It appeared that there was no dedicated staff for the non-rewarders so that every rewarder got first dibbs on any staff available at the counter. With the system being down, staff was having to write out in long hand all the rental info which took an extremely long time per person. The non-rewarders had nearly no chance of being waited on. Note that we would have gone to a different counter just feet away but I thought I had a brilliant idea by booking with Hotwire and pre-paying... never again. We were stuck in this line no matter how long it was going to take.
I just wonder why a manager didn't step up and figure out that 1) an announcement to everyone in line would be warranted that there was a problem but they were handling it; please be patient, etc. and 2) a dedicated sales person needed to be slotted for the non-rewarders to help ease the pain of the wait and 3) staff could smile and apologize profusely about the inconvenience (they didn't even acknowledge the issue, much less apologize).
Based on this one experience that, yes, I realize was a one-off occurrence most likely, I am taking my business elsewhere, anywhere else, lowest price via Priceline/Hotwire be damned. I want customer service; Hertz failed and there are so many other choices available
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