October 24, 2018

Customer Feedback Is Not Always As It Seems Pt3

The third post in our series about negative feedback is one that is very easily avoided. Every time we post an ‘advice’ article, one of the most important suggestions we make is around attention to details and reading/understanding what you are agreeing to.

here Is A Review Left On Our Trustpilot Profile.

Rating: 1/5
Title: Improper fuel surcharge
Review: When the company wants to offer a service, it does everything for you to do with it. But when there is an improper charge with AVIS, for example, as happened with me, I was charged for the fuel price of 70 euros and I delivered the car with the full tank as they informed, Indigo Car Hire no longer responds to emails. I’m trying to get my money and it’s been a week since they did not respond and I would like my case resolved. I have a transaction in my bank account that I stocked the day before but are not accepting this receipt. Indigo Car Hire does not pay the least attention to the customer if there is any problem.

You can see this review and many others here.

here Is What Actually Happened.

Firstly, I will tackle what went wrong and then come onto the comments about our service. This customer was booked in via our usual channels with no real headaches. Avis was the chosen supplier for one reason or another. Those that have used Avis before will know that when you arrive to collect the car you are offered a choice of fuel policies:

Full to Full: Meaning you pay a fuel deposit, drive away with a full tank and return with a full tank, your deposit is then refunded.
Full to Empty: Pre-pay for a full tank of fuel, drive away and return the vehicle empty or use as much fuel as you like.

In this instance the customer opted for the ‘Full to Empty’ policy. Pre-paid for the tank of fuel and drove away happy. When the vehicle was due to be returned the customer filled the tank before returning the car.

Due the to fuel policy that was selected, the system will not automatically refund the customer for the fuel because that is not what was agreed.

We were made aware of this on 11th October (Thursday PM), on Friday morning we contacted Avis to explain the situation. They understood and were very helpful, they submitted a ‘ticket’ with their customer service department who tend to take 24-48 business hours to sort any complaints.

This negative review was left for us on 15th October (Monday) before we had the chance to contact the customer to let them know the good news. We had spoken to Avis again, who advised that although it was against what was agreed, they could see there was a mistake on the customers part, the fuel tank was full so they were not out of pocket and they agreed to refund the customer. They had already processed it and the money would be in the customers bank account within 2-3 days.

In Short, within 2 working days of being informed of a problem that was caused by the customer himself, we managed to get him a full refund. We are shocked that this level of service warrants such negative feedback.

The main purpose of this post is to highlight, before signing for your vehicle make sure you fully understand what fuel policy you have opted for. Even though you may have booked a full to full option, the supplier may offer different fuel options at the desk.

Also when returning your rental car, regardless of which supplier you are placed with. We advise to always keep your fuel receipts as this would help if any fuel related customer service issues came up after the rental has completed.

What do you think? Thankfully these situations do not occur regularly, in-fact they are pretty rare. If this review and indeed this post can help us avoid it happening again then we have helped ourselves and our customers who are our #1 priority.