An Open Letter to Enterprise Rent-a-Car
I made a car rental reservation for noon today with Enterprise. I tried to reach the local branch to schedule a pickup starting at 11:40AM. I spent twenty minutes on hold, tried calling on a different phone, spent another few minutes on hold, gave up for 20 minutes, called back, spent another 15-20 minutes on hold, and finally gave up entirely. I was placed on hold via automated voice system. I never spoke to a human. I finally went back to the website to cancel my reservation, since there's no indication that I will ever get a pickup, or that the branch is even actually staffed today.
I tried calling Enterprise's national line, but they don't appear to have an option for "speak to a person" or "Press [X] if you are experiencing a problem contacting your local branch".
I have been using Enterprise for all of my rental cars, business or leisure, for many years. I have never before today had a problem with the local branch. The thing that really gets me most this experience isn't that I was unable to speak to a human or that I was on hold for over an hour, but that they have a 20-30 second commercial loop as their hold message. This is annoying and unpleasant to listen to ONCE. Listening to it endlessly repeated dozens of times is MADDENING. At this point in time, I am seriously considering never renting from Enterprise again, and that is solely because of the 30-second commercial loop, which turned a bad customer experience into a nightmarish one, where not only couldn't I get what I wanted, but I was unable to accomplish anything else because the horrible aggravating commercial loop destroyed my concentration.
Free advice to all companies: PLEASE DO NOT PLAY COMMERCIALS AT YOUR CUSTOMERS ON HOLD.
When I call you, I am already using your company. You have sold me! By playing a never-ending commercial at me, you are not making me more likely to use your company: you are making me MUCH LESS LIKELY. You are making the bad experience of "being on hold" into a painful and miserable one that I never want to endure again. You are alienating me. In the case of Enterprise, probably forever. Not by having some kind of staffing catastrophe for an hour, which I could forgive, but because I don't want to risk being stuck listening to that awful commercial again.
Also, I am posting this as an Open Letter because when I went to their website to complain, it let me input this whole rant but never got past telling me "please wait, submitting", until it finally timed out. So, congratulations, Enterprise, you have not only alienated me but you won't even let me tell you what you did wrong. I hope this unusual business strategy is working out for you. Sadly, it is not working out for me.
I tried calling Enterprise's national line, but they don't appear to have an option for "speak to a person" or "Press [X] if you are experiencing a problem contacting your local branch".
I have been using Enterprise for all of my rental cars, business or leisure, for many years. I have never before today had a problem with the local branch. The thing that really gets me most this experience isn't that I was unable to speak to a human or that I was on hold for over an hour, but that they have a 20-30 second commercial loop as their hold message. This is annoying and unpleasant to listen to ONCE. Listening to it endlessly repeated dozens of times is MADDENING. At this point in time, I am seriously considering never renting from Enterprise again, and that is solely because of the 30-second commercial loop, which turned a bad customer experience into a nightmarish one, where not only couldn't I get what I wanted, but I was unable to accomplish anything else because the horrible aggravating commercial loop destroyed my concentration.
Free advice to all companies: PLEASE DO NOT PLAY COMMERCIALS AT YOUR CUSTOMERS ON HOLD.
When I call you, I am already using your company. You have sold me! By playing a never-ending commercial at me, you are not making me more likely to use your company: you are making me MUCH LESS LIKELY. You are making the bad experience of "being on hold" into a painful and miserable one that I never want to endure again. You are alienating me. In the case of Enterprise, probably forever. Not by having some kind of staffing catastrophe for an hour, which I could forgive, but because I don't want to risk being stuck listening to that awful commercial again.
Also, I am posting this as an Open Letter because when I went to their website to complain, it let me input this whole rant but never got past telling me "please wait, submitting", until it finally timed out. So, congratulations, Enterprise, you have not only alienated me but you won't even let me tell you what you did wrong. I hope this unusual business strategy is working out for you. Sadly, it is not working out for me.