I happened to sit next to a senior executive from Hertz on a plane not too long ago. He told me, with some pride, that Hertz had adopted Net Promoter scores as an important success metric. That might be true. But my recent experience returning a Hertz car, filling out their Net Promoter survey, and attempting to resolve a billing error demonstrates just how far the company has to go.
Nothing special
My rental experience in Philadelphia was quite unremarkable in most ways. The car was ready for me when I arrived. It was fairly clean. It ran well. In short, it was fine.
As usual, I stopped at a gas station on the way to the airport to top off the tank. It cost me about $7.00, as usual, to fill up. It was raining as I pulled into the rental return area, and in between swipes of the windshield wipers, I scanned the parking lot for the return agent carrying a portable device to check in my car. While I wasn't rushed to get to my flight, I hadn't left myself excessive time to check in and go through security.
It was mid-day, and I was currently the only customer returning a car, as far as I could see. There was no return agent in sight. Hoping they would emerge, I got out of my car and began unloading my luggage from the trunk. Still no agent in sight, but now I was getting wet in the rain. So I didn't wait all that long before jotting down the gas and mileage on my contract, and traipsing over to the service counter inside.
Rising frustration
I found a long counter with perhaps ten spots for agents. Two were manned. There were three people in line ahead of me, all beginning their rentals. I scanned for a way to get my receipt from one of those automated kiosks, but couldn't locate one in the lobby. So I waited my turn.
"I'm returning a car," I said, as I handed over my contract with the mileage and gas level.
The agent did not make eye contact. "I'll have to get someone to check the car," she said, and quickly picked up a walkie-talkie.
"I wrote down the mileage and the gas," I replied.
I started to feel frustration and angerWithout responding to me, she said something into the radio and waited, looking at the device as if it might register a response on its own. She waited a little longer, hand on one hip, head cocked, staring at the radio. Then she repeated her request. Still no answer.
Abruptly, she put down the walkie-talkie and disappeared into an office behind the desk somewhere. I was left standing there. I hypothesized she had gone to get a supervisor or, perhaps, to call someone on the phone. Minutes passed. I surveyed the lobby. No one had entered the building since I had come in. All the other customers had been served and gone on their way. Another agent manned one of the stations and was pecking away at a keyboard, apparently transferring information from a printed list into some computer system.
Exasperated, I reached over the desk and plucked my contract off the counter. I returned to the parking lot determined to find the person with the portable machine who could issue me a receipt and send me on my way. One of the yellow-vested guys who move the cars told me he thought this person might be in a van, over across the parking lot, so I headed that direction. I didn't see the van in question, but this was the direction in which he had pointed. I hadn't traveled far when I noticed a woman with a large device hanging from her right hip and another in her hand heading toward me across the lot.
"I can help you with your return," she said. "Did you refill the gas tank?"
"Yes, I did." I waited as she walked around the car, scanned in the bar code from a window, then entered the driver's side and turned on the ignition to check the mileage and gas level. A minute or so later, I had my receipt and scurried, suitcoat now soaked through, to the waiting bus headed toward the terminal.
At least they are an NPS company!
Click to enlargeOnce on board the flight, with my wet suit coat whisked away by a crusty flight attendant, I followed my ritual of pulling receipts from various pockets to place them all in a neat pile for submission to our finance team. When I got to the Hertz receipt, I noticed it was a larger charge than normal. Checking more closely, I discovered a charge for about $25 labelled "fuel & service."
I couldn't believe it. I had waited nearly 15 minutes, traipsed through the rain and followed all the rules, only to be charged roughly 3.5 times what it had already cost me to fill up the tank. In other words, I had now spent $42 on a $7 fill up and been subjected to a long wait and walk in the rain. I was pretty ticked off.
Then I remembered: They're an NPS company. There will be a way for me to give my feedback and get resolution. Marked plainly at the bottom of the receipt was a request to provide feedback via their "four question survey."
At home that night, I followed the link to fill out the survey. The first three questions were requests for a rental record number, a 5-7 digit code of some sort, and classification of my rental as business or personal. The fourth question asked about my overall satisfaction on a zero to nine scale (I could only surmise that Hertz stopped offering 10 as a possible response because no one ever gave them one). The fifth question of the four question survey asked about my likelihood to recommend Hertz on the same scale. Six asked whether I'd like to leave comments. Seven offered a comment box. Eight asked whether I'd like to contact Hertz about anything.
;)
Click to enlargeI answered yes, not catching that they had asked if I would like to contact them (not the reverse). I was promptly deposited on a page offering various options for leaving them feedback. After a bit of time staring at the options, I chose one. I was then offered the opportunity to fill out another 22 fields, at least 12 of which could have been pre-populated with responses from my prior survey plus information from my rental record. Among the questions was an opportunity to describe what I had experienced. I asked for a refund of the $25.
Blowing a head gasket
The immediate auto-generated response from the system was standard. A few days later, I received a human-generated response. The service person thanked me for the opportunity to review my situation, and then told me that their records indicated I had not, in fact, returned the car with a full tank of gas. So I had been charged for gas as per the rental contract I had signed.
;)
Click to enlargeThis response sent me over the edge. I scanned in the receipt from the gas station, which showed both the address of the gas station and the date and time of the fill up. I also created a Google map of the route from the gas station to the rental return, noting the distance and time. I included these with my response, summarized by the question "Please tell me what I have to do to get my $25 back."
Finally, a few days later, I received a positive response. Once again, I was thanked for providing them the opportunity to examine my situation. This time, since I had provided incontrovertible proof, it was allowed that I would receive a refund for over $27. I had failed to notice taxes and other additional items that had inflated the charge even more than I had discerned originally. This would be credited to my card account.
And so ended my unfortunate experience.
A few questions to ponder
- Who was to blame here? Who set this series of events in motion?
- What was the point in the story at which things first went very badly wrong?
- What was the most important flaw in Hertz's approach to Net Promoter feedback?
- How did the employee behind the counter inside feel? Why did she act the way she did?
- What about the employee who was supposed to be checking in the cars? What was going on for her?