The technology industry are big renters of cars and Avis who claim to fame was “we Try Harder” appear to not only be having major technology issues, but their Avis Preferred membership service, appearing to be in total array, especially at Melbourne airport, which is one of their biggest locations for rentals in Australia.
I have been an AVIS customer for 40+ years, I am also an Avis Wizard and Preferred Card member.
During my last four visits to Melbourne, I have had to wait up to half an hour to simply collect a car, and even more frustrating it appears that their front line staff are oblivious to the definition of customer service.
This week the horror of renting a car from Avis was on full display with several ‘Preferred’ customers who I spoke to in a queue claiming, “It’s been like this for months”.
“It’s either we are short of cars” or “You have to now collect the keys to a car because we have had cars stolen” said one lady who was seriously concerned as both Qantas and Virgin flights from Sydney to Melbourne had already been delayed an hour and she needed to get to a meeting.
“This is no isolated incident” said another frustrated customer.
Normally Preferred customers walk up to the Avis Booth, look for their car bay number on a board and drive away.
A visit to the Avis web site claims “Join our complimentary Avis Preferred membership program to experience priority service and our smoothest car rental experience possible”.
But this is not the case anymore.
When I finally got to the counter, I was told that my booking was not in the system despite my name being in lights on a board with the message please go the counter.
When I gave her the booking number, I was told the SUV I had booked was not available, I was offered a small Toyota Camry.
When I asked for what I had booked or a vehicle close to the size of the vehicle I had booked, she said none was available.
“We are short of cars”.
“The car you are offering is not good enough” I replied.
“We have three people and luggage”.
Then came the woke response “I don’t like your attitude” which appears to be a bog standard response today from people who should not be in customer service and appear not to be able handle a legitimate complaint.
“Really so it’s okay to stand in a queue for 30 minutes just to get served, then you tell me you don’t have my booking, then you tell me that the car I booked is not available”.
“Is this what you call your Preferred service”.
At this stage she fetches a manager, who ironically found an SUV in minutes.
A Hybrid Toyota which had no Google Android Mapping or Apple mapping.
This in itself creates a serious safety problem, as customers have to use their mobile phones for mapping.
There are no mounts for a mobile so looking away from the front of the car to mapping is an issue especially if a mobile keeps timing out.
The images below were taken six months ago. The images above this week.
In the old days Avis, who appear to have thrown customer service out the door, would have offered a mapping kit consisting of a Navman for vehicles without any mapping capability.
Ironically the Hertz counter had their Preferred customers through in minutes, a situation which did not go unnoticed by frustrated Avis customers being forced to wait.
What is apparent is that Avis has had a problem at Melbourne airport with cars being stolen but instead of solving the problem in the best interest of customer service, management appear to be quite prepared inconvenience customers.
When this issue was first identified to me 12 months ago, I suggested to the Avis airport manager at the time that a simple row of key boxes would solve the problem with customers given a box number and unlock code similar to what rental apartments do for late arrivals.
It appears this idea went nowhere with their current manager claiming, “This would solve a lot of our problems”.
A visit to the Trust Pilot web site
Vanessa Wolczak, Head of Marketing, Product & PR, at the Avid Budget Group has not responded to our request for a comment on the service woes.
We did get a call back from their PR Company who said they would come back; we are still waiting.
For the record.
The writer of this article handled PR for Avis for 15 years via a PR Company I owned at the time, the Company eventually became Ogilvy PR.
During this time we helped Avis’s win contracts to operate on airports, we developed their strategy for fighting in what became known as the “Car Rental War” in Australia when Avis and Budget which was then owned by Bob Ansett fought each other for market share along with Hertz.
We launch the Avis Wizard and Preferred Program to much success with Avis going from #3 to #1.
One initiative we introduced was a Coupon that the front desk staff who at the time were not into “Wokeness” handed out to customers who had had a problem during their rental.
We offered a 15% discount off their next rental or a free rental day.
Today it appears that Avis is all about internal systems that are not working and shocking customer service.
The cost for 29 hours of Avis car rental $404.
If you have had a bad Avis experience, please email me at dwr @4squaremedia.com.
