Another Casualty of Poor Service
A colleague of mine at Carlson Marketing recently sent me an email detailing a horrible customer experience she had with Budget Car Rentals while traveling in Costa Rica. During her trip, her rental car’s tire went flat. While changing it, she was robbed on the side of the road, losing her passport, cell phone, cash, and credit cards. But the way she describes it, the customer service experience that followed was almost as bad as the roadside robbery.
Because she had to obtain a new passport, she was forced to stay in Costa Rica an extra day. She was charged an extra day for the rental in addition to the new tire she paid out of her pocket for. After contacting Budget by phone and being told all complaints had to be in writing, she sent in the necessary paperwork to prove her story. She admits she didn’t expect to be compensated for something that could be described as bad luck, but the poorly-written form letter she received as a response just made things worse.
Budget responded to her complaint, in a letter addressed to her husband instead of her, by stating that “Repair of a tire is normal maintained on a vehicle” and “We apologize most sincerely for any inconvenience you may have been caused.” Setting aside the grammar, is this really the way she should have been treated? I’m confident she won’t be using Budget's services again, despite the vouchers that were enclosed in the letter.
When a conflict like this arises and a customer has a horrible experience that isn’t entirely your company’s fault, but is inseparably tied to your brand in a customer’s mind, what should you do? Shouldn’t retaining that customer be more important than following every company policy, from only accepting written complaints to not reimbursing for tire replacement? How do you handle similar situations with customers?
Miro,
Hi, it's me-- the customer who received the ridiculous letter from Budget. Budget Rent A Car System, Inc. at 4500 South 129th East Ave, Tulsa Oklahoma sent the letter. The question in my customer service letter is about re-treaded tires, which-- I’m told-- are prone to blow. I will accept the answer "yes, we put second-hand re-treaded tires on our cars, and then we charge you when they blow." I just want someone to say that… or else give me a refund for the charge of the replacement tire. I am not asking them to pay for the emergency passport, or the extra night of hotel, or personal items that were stolen. I just want to know—is the mother company policy that re-capped tires are acceptable? The letter I got in return was a joke—not to mention offensive because the “inconvenience” was pretty significant. I have been calling Budget National at 1-800-621-2844 and I will continue to follow up until I hear back one way or the other. At this point, no matter how this debacle turns out, I am so frustrated with Budget. I’ve told this story over and over at dinner parties, so I’m turning into a negative marketing message for Budget. It will take me a long time to forget about the poor handling of this situation.
Not to belabour the point -but National car rental HQ is in Tulsa - not Budget.
The line is drawn - where there is a reasonable expectation. In this particular case - your friend stated it was a case of bad luck that triggered the ensuing events.
Is it reasonable to expect that the company is responsible? They did release the car in good working condition. The same holds true for an airline or a hotel. Margins in these sectors are considerably higher and also viewed more from a marginal cost/revenue basis - so the ability of the business to make a more magnanimous gesture is much easier.
Don't get me wrong - I think every company should do what it can to make amends when they are at fault.
What's next - blame the vacation resort because it rained and their pamphlet only had sunny vistas?
And to Michael's point - these are not robotic employees. They are anything but.
Normal procedure in Canada would have involved a telephone call to get all the particulars as well as to have a personable acknowledgement of the situation.
Peace out.
Miro
Miro-
Thank you for your inside input. I understand that there needs to be a line drawn at where a company's responsibility ends and a customer's begins, but as someone who hasn't worked in corporate America I don't know where that is.
To answer one of your questions, the letter from Budget came on letterhead from Tulsa, OK from an "international specialist."
I think you make another excellent point about franchises. I'd be interested to see what readers think about the risk of a franchise's behavior negatively impacting a brand, and whether that should be a separate posting altogether?
-Jeremy
In a previous life I headed up National marketing for Budget Canada.
On behalf of my alma mater I am very sorry about your friend’s mishap - the customer service failing is usually attributed to the fact that most/many of Budget’s locations are franchise owned. So events that transpire ‘locally’ don’t always get passed up to the national customer service department which has all of the tools to open cases and track them through to resolution.
Local franchisees will want to deal with it locally because they feel they are equipped to do so and/or not want to flag any issues to ‘head office’.
Your friend should take it up the food chain if they are not satisfied.
In Canada, customer service did not report to marketing - but they had full authority to track down the problem - gather all the facts and then resolve the complaint to the customer’s satisfaction. The vast majority of franchisees in Canada understood the importance customer satisfaction was to the entire system - and I frequently reminded them to think of themselves as a chain and not a single location.
That being said, I also made it a point to stay abreast of issues and trends in customer complaints - and bird-dogged any letters that landed on my desk.
I hope this gives you a more complete understanding of the internal mechanics.
Questions - Who did your friend contact at Budget? In USA? In Costa Rica?
With regards to your question as to how far a company must go to make restitutions? This is a much bigger issue but also one where a line needs to be drawn. What would have happened if she was killed, or she ran someone down or other calamity - where does the responsibility lie and where does it end?
In your friend’s words - it was a case of bad luck. It doesn’t change the fact that the complaint could have been handled better. But there needs to be some line of demarcation that all companies draw on how much cost they are prepared to absorb in servicing customers. Don’t blame the messenger -blame the fianacials of a ROC.
My $0.02
Miro
This is likely the result of Budget (and many other companies) putting Robotic and disempowered employees on the frontline. The person likely just went to the "solutions" box and sent out this automated response without assessing the entire situation. With all that happened to the customer a phone call to her would have been most appropriate and a good start.
www.themichaeldbrown.com
Only once n my corporate career in Marketing has Marketing reported to the Director of Customer Service. Never has the Director of Customer Service reported to Marketing.
So few people understand that Customer Service is the strongest form of marketing that most people experience.