A Treasure Found at Home

i’ve just had the most horrible experience with the people at Budget Car Rental in Portland, OR. i told the manager there that she was losing a customer and that i would tell everyone i knew not to rent from Budget, and she said, “OK”.

i guess thinking isn’t really encouraged, and neither is customer retention or customer service.

i left my phone in the center console of the car i rented. i was distracted trying to get the attention of the check in agent who was helping the person who drove up behind me* instead of me and forgot to lean back in to grab it.

by the time i was at my gate and waiting to board the plane, i figured out that i’d forgotten the phone. i called Budget, and they told me that even though they’d cleaned the whole car** (and leased it out again) there was no phone in it and it was not in lost and found. but i could wait till the 14th, she said cheerily, and call back then to see if it’s found then.

i went to buy a new phone as soon as i got home. what’s a few hundred bucks to not having my phone for two weeks? but i was just a smidge too late and the storefronts were closed.

i called Budget again who again said i could just wait till the 14th. i asked if they couldn’t contact the people who had the car and was told THEY HAD NO WAY TO DO THAT. which i promptly revealed as a lie, and was told instead that they’re just not supposed to. then i was transferred to a manager who asked how she could get in touch with me. good question… without my phone….

i agreed to call back in a couple hours (and find out what my land line/emergency only/came with the internet phone number is in the meantime). when i called back i was told they DO have the phone, they’ve had it all along, it just didn’t occur to them to look in more than one of the three lost and found boxes.

i asked her to overnight it to me; that it is critical that i have my phone. we even talked about when it would get to me so i knew if i should give her my home phone or my office phone. we talked about how i’m only home on tuesdays, only available to receive packages at my home address on tuesday. in fact, she wrote that part down, but apparently didn’t think to write down the part about overnighting it.

so i checked my voicemail at home this morning and got a call from Budget Portland asking me if i wanted it overnighted since i was only home on tuesdays. and since i didn’t answer (since i’m only home on tuesdays) she dropped it in the regular mail, thinking $30 might be way too much for me to want to pay to get my phone back… the one i’d called about 3 or 4 times, the one they can’t reach me on cause they have it! she just wasn’t sure if i wanted it back that badly.

when i asked to speak again to a manager, that woman was baffled at what she could possibly do to make me happy at this point, even asking me what she should do. i can think of a lot of things i would do as a business owner: pay for the shipping of the phone send a coupon for a free day’s rental, send a coupon for a discounted rental… how hard could it be to think of something to do to retain a customer?

instead, i told her i would like to not have to tell her how to do customer support and that she’d just lost a customer. she seemed ok with that.

glad to see that the manager today at the Budget Rental Car company at the Portland International Airport is a-ok with losing customers and doesn’t mind if those unhappy customers tell everyone they know about the poor service.

so, the moral of the story: Do Not Rent from Budget Rental Car.

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*the person behind me was also unhappy… about a bait and switch he’d experienced with them.

**i have to say the soda that was all over the console when i had the car indicated to me that cleaning isn’t their strong suit.