Enterprise #1 in Car Rental Customer Satisfaction

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For an unprecedented 6 years in a row, Enterprise Rent a Car once again tops JD Powers’ 2009 Car Rental Satisfaction Survey. Surprisingly, the company that boasts it’s customer service prowess, Hertz, wasn’t even in second place – it was ranked third behind National Rent a Car. The survey notes that overall, customer satisfaction has increased for the car rental agency as a whole.

The survey takes 12,000 responses and rates car rental companies in several areas: price, ease of pickup, quality of rental car, ease of return, ease of reservation, and airport shuttles and busses. Overall, consumers were much happier this years than in previous years; in fact, this year breaks a two year trend of double digit declines in customer satisfaction.

Of course, the level of satisfaction also depends on the type of customer. National is geared towards non-business customers’ and their needs and is very competitively priced. On the other hand, National and Hertz tailor their services to business customers. For instance, Hertz fares particularly well on convenience of airport shuttles compared to Enterprise, but Enterprise performs far better in price.

The report also notes that as a whole prices have been declining across the industry. This can be attributed to smaller fleet sizes that are replaced less often, decreasing costs to the car rental agency that is then passed to the consumer. However, not everything is within the car rental agency’s control – taxes are often levied against car rentals, since these “hidden costs” are almost always approved by residents as a way to increase tax revenue.

The car rental agency has come a long way – they are changing to meet the current economic environment, as well as the customers’ constantly changing needs. In this difficult time, it’s nice to see a company succeed by providing great service at a reasonable price.