I feel your pain. To whit, I have attached a letter which I have sent to the branch manager, and regional manager for Enterprise in Medford, Oregon (to no reply). Since the note, I have twice rented from Hertz and will continue to do so. I, like you, find great irony in the customer service doctrine on the Enterprise desks where we were both treated so badly. Here is my letter:

To: tami.peterson2@erac.com
Subject: Lost customer.
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2010 23:26:10 -0600

4/23/10

Ms. Peterson,

As I am in the service industry as well, I thought that I would extend you more courtesy than your representative showed me last night. The courtesy I extend is letting you know exactly WHY I will no longer be your customer, or a customer of Enterprise Rent-A-Car beyond this weekend.

I arrived from Phoenix Friday evening (4/23) for my monthly visit with my son. As always, I headed to your counter to procure my rental vehicle. In this case however, there was no record of my reservation. I checked my Blackberry, where I save all my travel confirmations, and it was not there. I am uncertain whether I did not save the information properly, or what exactly happened to my reservation. That said, your representative could not have been any less helpful. She stated that she DID have cars available, but that a car that I normally pay $26/day for would be $89/day. She said this was because I was a “walk-up”. She offered no assistance to help determine what might have happened with my reservation, and made no effort to work with me towards a more amenable solution. Rather, I was ushered aside in favor of the next customer.

Indifferent attitude aside, the truly maddening aspect of this situation is that I was unable to re-book my reservation online, or with the Enterprise customer service telephone center, as the office showed “sold out”. I could have accepted my misfortune, if that were actually true; in fact, the office was NOT “sold out”, there WERE cars available, just for the “walk-up” rate, which was more than triple the rate that I have paid at your location more than two dozen times prior. I have never before felt so devalued as a customer. I have a 20-year history of patronage with Enterprise, and an extensive history with YOUR particular office, which clearly means nothing, as neither your counter representative or the telephone associate were interested in helping me at all. Furthermore, the telephone associate informed me that your Alamo division at MFR had $29/day vehicles available in order to get me off the phone. When I went to that desk, that was patently untrue, with the least expensive being $99/day.

I suppose that things simply cost what they cost, at periods of peak demand, and yet I received no consideration or offer of assistance form anyone at Enterprise to help find a solution to my situation. It is certainly possible that I made an error in the reservation process, but Enterprise’s “tough luck” stance to a frequent and loyal customer was galling. As I later went back to your desk to cancel my May reservations with your office, your representative attempted to soft-pedal her stance, claiming that she had not intended to leave matters as they were, that she WAS intending to help me, but that I somehow misunderstood. I can assure that I misunderstood nothing. Had she simply asked me to wait until she assisted the customer’s behind me, or given me ANY indication that she would seek to assist me, I would have readily accepted that. Instead, I was summarily dismissed, and left to my own devices.

As a result, I had to take a taxi to my hotel, and will be unable to pick my son up at 8:00am on Saturday as scheduled. I fly from Phoenix monthly to see him, and I am able to be with him a grand total of two days a month. Thanks to this incident, I will spend all Saturday morning attempting to secure another rental car, from your Court Street location, which does not open until 9:00am. I will need to call them and wait for a ride to get the vehicle. Believe me, that if I had ANY other reasonable options, I would not be using Enterprise; unfortunately, I am now stuck, far from home, with no transportation. My weekend with my son is ruined.

There will be no further Enterprise rentals in my future. I have cancelled confirmation #751565992 in May at your office, and R4PM43 in May in Chicago. I will not book with Enterprise as planned in New York in May, or Los Angeles in June. I also will close my corporate accounts with Enterprise at Bradley Airport in Hartford and at the downtown Salt Lake City office. This will cause me no small amount of difficulty; to establish new relationships, to cancel reservations and rebook elsewhere. That should provide some measure of how COMPLETELY alienated I feel. One would expect significantly better in a down economy and a competitive industry…

Barry Gross
Scottsdale, Arizona