Looks as if the underperforming U.S. airline industry has some company. Blaming “mounting frustrations” in a year fraught with a record number of flight delays, our friends at J.D. Power and Associates have determined that customer satisfaction with rental cars has “declined considerably.”
And how.
Let’s just put it this way: If J.D. were a school headmaster, the car rental companies would be sent to detention for their awful, awful scores. That’s certainly what its 2007 Rental Car Satisfaction Study suggests. The “winner,” Enterprise, was given 777 points on a scale of 1,000 — a “C.” Same for Hertz (762), National (754) and Avis (751).
Dangerously close to “D” territory was Budget (735), Alamo (733) and Dollar (731).
Car rental complaints are well documented in the blogosphere. But outside of a few sites and the trades, no one seems to be paying much attention to the slow, embarrassing slide the auto rental industry is taking, at least when it comes to customer service.
My advice? Be vigilant when you rent.
Don’t let the the car rental companies get away with offering substandard customer service. And remember, you always have a choice. Don’t hesitate to cancel your rental if you’re being jerked around.
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Sign up for my 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I rented a car with Budget in Laguardia, NY for three days for a rate of $65 a day. As a newbie mistake I changed the delivery to another place at about 20 miles from the original destination. That little change cost me $500.
The change was not pure lazyness and I called the company trying to find a way that worked for everybody. The only thing that came up from those conversations was that I expended another $70 in long distance calls from the hotel. All what I got was frustration and the feeling that the word service doesn’t exist in their vocabulaty.
I don’t think this is something that we should endure as the new “bed bugs” of travelling. We deserve a better service and our personal needs to be taken care of. We deserve car rental companies to go the extra mile for us. We shouldn’t accept less than that.
About a month ago I attended an off site class reunion in Kansas City. A vehicle was not required until Sunday and the hotel in which we stayed has a Hertz off
airport office at the hotel. I had not rented from Hertz in years since I gravitated to Budget and National because of the Emerald Isle and a similar, choose your own vehicle, at Budget.
One of the reasons was the local classmates told me the airport taxes on rental vehicles from the Airport is over 50% of the rental cost, off airport rentals have a much lower tax. Hertz provided me with a Trailblazer SUV (I both own and rent SUVs because of the safety issue should a wreck occur) whixh was in excellent condition and the counter lady could not have been nicer. Visited spouse’s relatives in Oklahoma and left Thursday from MCI for SNA. Turned the vehicle in at the airport for a charge of aproximately $250. thus saving about $125 on the rental. Almost decided to switch back to Hertz and the JD Powers survey clinched the decision.