When my wife and I planned a 3-day getaway in Santa Fe recently, we debated whether to put the miles on our vehicle or rent a car. It’s approximately 550 miles one way from OKC to Santa Fe, NM.
Ultimately, we decided to rent a car and landed on Hertz because it has the reputation of being the nation’s No. 1 car rental company and because it has an Edmond storefront pickup location.
So, I went online, joined the Hertz ‘Gold Club’ and reserved a car with a $286 deposit for June 27 pickup at the Edmond location. We were promised a full-size SUV that would be a Chevy Blazer or something similar.
You know where this is headed.
We showed up the at Hertz Edmond location about 10:45 on the morning of Saturday the 27th and saw several vehicles outside the store, including a couple of Blazers.
But when I approached the door, I found it locked. I looked inside and saw no one behind the desk. Then I looked at the hours on the door, which said “closed Saturday and Sunday.”
Wait! The website said open 9 am-noon on Saturday. Plus, I had stopped by the Hertz office midweek and the customer service rep assured me that we could pick up our vehicle by 11 am Saturday.
A woman who was sitting on some nearby steps as I walked up to the store approached me and said she also was there to pick up her rental car. She had been trying to reach customer service without any luck.
My wife, Paula, and 7-year old grandson walked up, and we milled around together for a while deciding what to do.
I finally called the Hertz customer service number and only got an AI ‘representative’ that provided no answers. My wife and I decided to return to our car to wait and see if a Hertz employee showed up.
Our goal was to pick up the rental vehicle, drive to our house, load it and head west toward Santa Fe. I assured Paula that someone would be there by noon because there were several rental cars in the lot.
She scoffed at my naivety.
There were perhaps four or five other customers who showed up, some to drop off vehicles and others to pick up a rental.
So we sat and waited.
When no one showed by 12:05 pm, I began searching for ways to reach a live person at Hertz customer service. I decided to ask ChatGPT, the AI bot, how to reach a human. Chatbot told me to say “request an agent or request a representative” multiple times when speaking to the company’s robot agent.
I took the advice and the robot voice told me it would connect me to a human representative. After about a 10-minute delay, a real person came on the line.
We explained our dilemma, and she said she would call the local store’s number. She came back on and said no one answered. She then suggested that we head to the airport to rent a car from the Hertz office there. We told her that we were not driving all the way to the OKC airport and then back to Edmond before loading the car and driving to Santa Fe.
The Hertz rep then said she would cancel our reservation and provide a full refund within 7 to 10 business days. That was the first promising result of the day.
We went home, packed our car and hit the road, swallowing our frustrations.
The vacation went off without a hitch, and we had a great time in New Mexico. After we came back home midweek, I decided to drop by the Hertz store and ask about what happened to us and all the other people who showed up at the closed Edmond location on June 27.
So, I drove to the store and walked in.
“Why was there no one here to provide a rental vehicle to us and other customers waiting outside last Saturday?”
A man I assume to be the manager said the store was supposed to be open. Someone was supposed to be there to provide keys to customers like us who had rented a vehicle, or there to drop one off.
“That person is no longer employed by Hertz,” the man told me.
That wasn’t exactly an apology, but provided an answer. I should have asked why there is no local number posted for customers to call when something like this arises. Or why the sign on the door says “closed Saturday and Sunday” when the website says open 9 to noon on Saturday.
Or how about a little something for the effort to keep us as a customer?
But it’s behind us now. It’s been a week and we’re back to our day-to-day routine.
I’m still waiting for the promised refund.
BONUS CONTENT: This isn’t our first go-round with alleged ‘customer service’ from a major U.S. corporation. A few years ago, our daughter’s flight from DFW to OKC was canceled by American Airlines and we drove to Dallas to pick her up. It was the final leg of a flight from Fort Lauderdale. We appealed for a refund of the DFW-OKC leg, which finally happened but not before I wrote a blog post about the experience and the lack of, well, customer service.
Read it here.
