A friend of ours is landing in Germany in about an hour and a half. We’ve helped him make reservations with Sixt Car Rental so that he can have a particular car (Mercedes C-Class or BMW 5 series) when he lands and even made a special request.
We just now called to try to make sure our friend will get the car we’ve requested and the very friendly customer support representative Sebastien told us no we can’t know that until just a few minutes (about 30) before it’s due to be picked up. In this day and age (2008) it seems amazing that such information is not available. So we ask Sebastien if we could call the local rental place to find out what cars they have. He politely answers no we can’t because they don’t have a phone. I’m sorry, but WTF? No phone? Yes, says Sebastien, the local office only have a special “call” so that customer service can contact them. “So”, I say to Sebastien, trying to keep a straight face, “what if I work in that local office, I don’t have a mobile phone, and my wife wants to know when I’ll be home for dinner?” Seems the only solution is for her to call Sixt customer service and they can contact me then, I guess. I started to laugh, and apologized to Sebastien for that, but I asked him of they record customer service calls. It took him a while to understand what I meant, but finally he said it might happen. I said I’d love a copy for my records, because I thought no one would believe me. It just felt like such an unreal experience. Just to add something to that, we asked Sebastien whether there was a supervisor or manager there that we could talk to and he said “no, it’s Sunday”. Of course, it’s Sunday in Germany so then there’s no need for any supervision or management. I wonder what Sebastien would do in a really tricky situation. I’m all for empowering employees, but there also needs to be some sort of authority available, even if it’s just over the phone, I would think.
This ended with me feeling like “this should be on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart” This was such a moment. Especially with the writers’ strike right now, they could make a reservation with Sixt and try to find out what car they’re going to get. Jon are you listening (reading?) - I won’t even charge for the idea.
Credit where credit is due though, after arguing with Sebastien for probably 10-15 minutes he was as polite and calm as ever. That’s rare to find and he should be congratulated for that performance. And I’m not blaming any of this on him, it’s unfortunate that he took the blunt of our frustration. Personally I blame Sixt the company for what seems to be stupid inflexible policies and procedures. They don’t put the customer in center, not at all, instead they seem to do what’s good for Sixt.
Anyway, we’re calling back in about an hour’s time to find out what car our friend will get. That’s around the time that Sebastien told us we should be able to find out.
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