Enterprise Rent-A-Car Customer Service

I just returned from a trip to Florida where I rented a car from Enterprise Rent-A-Car at the Fort Lauderdale airport.  I don’t often rent from Enterprise, so I had to get in the “no priority” line along with a bunch of other folks.  Well forget about no-priority – this Enterprise location knows how to serve people!

• So I get to the counter after a bit of a wait.  The first thing the customer service agent does is to reach his hand over the counter to shake my hand and introduce himself.  Brilliant!   What, like I am going to complain about the wait after he personally introduces himself?
• Now I start watching.  It’s not just the agent I am talking to, every agent is starting off the transaction in the exact same mode.  Clearly the agents have been given training – training that has taken root!
• After the paperwork is all done I am sent to the end of the counter to wait for an agent to escort me to my car.  I was getting out my phone to check messages while waiting when after 30 seconds the agent calls my name.  As I walk over, you guessed it, he shakes my hand and introduces himself.

Now the actual car I rented, a Mazda CX7, absolutely sucked for me.  The angles were all wrong, I could not see the front of the hood or easily gauge where the rear of the car was.  So while the car was clean, I did not enjoy the rental at all.

• When I drop off the car, I am once again greeted with a nice welcome back.
• The agent asks about the car and listens to my comments about the Mazda.  He notes, “Wow, that is good to know.  You’re average height and it sounds like anybody shorter would have a real hard time with this model – I’m going to keep that in mind.”  Who knows if he will or not – but he certainly sounded genuinely interested in my comments.
• The agents asks if I filled up the tank and I look up in horror with the sudden realization that I had forgotten.  I took a  phone call while driving and forgot all about it.
• The agent notes “The gas price is high, but since you did not use any other discounts I was able to take off 7 dollars.”  Again – true or not I’ll never know – but I felt a bit better!

I left “Enterprise land” and went to the airport provided shuttle bus for customers of all the rental car companies.  I asked the driver if this was the bus for USAIR and he grunted and pointed right between two buses.  I had to ask again, and clearly annoy him, to figure out which of the two buses I should get on.

As I sat on the bus, I thought about the service at National versus the shuttle bus – it put it all in context.  Kudos to the management team at Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Fort Lauderdale for bringing customer service to life!