I am currently employed with Hertz and I can shed some light on some of the issues shown here. There are really a few different issues with staffing at Hertz Rental Car.

1. There is a strong inflexible union policy in tact that prevents Hertz from hiring seasonal and part time workers. (at least at my location) Because the rental car business has a really bad down period in the winter, it leaves the company in a bad position where it has to lay off workers because the staff needed isn't even half of what is needed in the late spring, summer, and early fall. Even so, Hertz needs to figure out a plan that keeps these employees around, because seasonal annual layoffs is a terrible long term strategy.

2. Also because of Union policy, management cannot have more than a couple of variable schedule workers on staff. Most of the staff must be given a fixed unchanging weekly schedule. It works out in some cases for the lives of the counter reps, but because airports are extremely unpredictable it can cause serious issues when there are flight delays because the staff is setup for peak periods and for the original arrival times. When there are loads of people arriving at 11pm at night there may only be a couple agents left over to help them. Management cannot adjust schedules accordingly because of the union. Still, this is another issue that can be resolved by having extra staff scheduled in case these unpredictable things happen. It's really a matter of the company being cheap with labor.

3. Finding qualified labor is also extremely rough. Many would point to high unemployment rates as being no excuse for this, but being a counter rep is highly undesirable and tough to keep around. If you had any idea the level of harassment counter reps deal with on a daily basis, you might understand the high turnover rate. And also understand why the company is constantly understaffed. The lines are long and customers are incredibly unreasonable and picky. I have had customers hold up the line for 15-20 minutes over the color of their car. I have had customers dispute taxes, and complain mightily about getting a shitty car when they book and economy class vehicle. People complain about the brand, the mileage, the odors, the fact that there isn't bluetooth, usb ports, and free navigation systems. The car rental business isn't perfect, and many customers will growl at you if it is not. It is a terrible place to work because customers can be extremely mean. Most of the staff has chronic nightmares about work, including myself.

4. The Union policy allows for extremely exploitable sick and tardy freedom. Workers can call in up to three hours and fifty minutes late 5 times within a 90 day period, and also call out sick 3 days per 90 days without any disciplinary action. Because of that most of the staff abuses this freedom maxing out all the available time. Pretty much every single day I come into work there are a plethora of tardy and sick calls and we have to scramble to make up for the lost labor.

A lot of these issues can be resolved with better decision making higher up in the company. Creating a better environment for it's workers will make it so that people aren't afraid to come to work, and exploiting attendance policies. The whole operation needs more staff from the car cleaners to management, to counter reps.

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Hertz is trying to charge me for gallons of gasoline when the auto I returned was completely full, above the "full" line on the gas indicator!

They take no responsibility for this, and put the burden of proof on me.

Also, I have rented from Alamo, Budget, and many others and done the exact same refill operation without a single challenge over a two year period!

STAY AWAY FROM HERTZ!

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All the major rental companies have terrible customer service - Herz, Avis, Eurocar, Thrifty, Budget - and they all have appalling websites to book through too.

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As a brand new employee of Hertz (2 wks) I sincerely am shocked at this behavior but am not surprised the Express kiosk are not all up and running yet. This is so very new @ Hertz, and they are doing all they can to hire qualified persons to learn the very detailed and difficult job of a Express Rent Specialist.

I have worked at hertz and you guys have no idea how mean and rude customers can be. This woman may have held out for as long as she could and had other obligations! its not her fault they didnt have anyone else helping her.Its managements fault.

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Unfortunately, bad service is institutionalized at Hertz. It started with the new owners, who did remove some of the inefficiency, but then they cut to the bone and then the recession hit. The premier car rental company actually has become worse then Rent-A-Wreck 10 years ago. At St Louis airport, I would routinely arrive Monday morning as a President's Circle Member and there would be no staff to prepare the Gold reservations. I actually found that it was faster to go to the non-elite counter and get served immediately. And then the cars had > 30k miles... as a result, I've cut my spend with Hertz by 2/3.

The PR person's post and subsequent comments about it speak to two points that I often discuss:

1. No one wants to hear from the PR person in a situation like this. They want to hear from a decision maker. The PR person should have been *behind the scenes* working with the CEO or VP or customer service director or ANYONE accountable for the operational breakdown that caused the situation to happen. She should have alerted the decision makers and gotten one of THEM to post a real reply (not a fluff reply).

2. Many organizations expect that communication can fix a non-communication problem. It just can't. Communication can be a channel to help people learn how operational problems are going to be fixed, but it cannot, in and of itself fix the problem.

I agree here with Anna, it is not the employee's fault that her shift was over and no one else was there to take care of the customers'. That is all on management; management did not schedule staff accordingly. One can't fault the employee for leaving when her shift is over, like all of us; we want to get on with our personal life when the work day is over. Should or could she of handled it better, yes. Plus, Paula in her response should have been more empathetic and had better tone to show that is not what Hertz wants for a customer experience. Having been a prior manager for Hertz, I know that they have laid off thousands of employees and thus this is part of the consequences to thinning out too many employees. They have to change a culture and show that employees matter and that will trickle down to the customer experience.

Every company in the world runs into a snag every once in a while. But the true tell comes when you see how the employees handle that snag. This video highlights deeper issue with Hertz. It is clear that this Hertz employee does not love her company. That is an upper management philosophy problem. Some one please buy the Hertz CEO a copy of any book written by Herb Kelleher of Southwest.

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It "hurts" to watch this. Crappy customer service. A poor PR response that does not include an apology. Ultimately, I blame upper management, or a lack thereof.

I travel to the DFW area 2-3 times a month. This is why I rent from Avis. Mishaps like this seem to happen more and more at Hertz. We have a corporate account with Hertz, and even without using my discount, Avis is cheaper and the cars are much more desireable. Customer service is top notch and smiling faces are present undoubtedly. Hertz is so big into the corporate accounts that every customer is literally a number, and not a walking, breathing being on the other side of the counter. What they need to remember is "word of mouth" is their best advertisement.... Words cannot fix what I just saw on this video.

What response? Pamela Rivera simply echoed the company line that the employee-- who left with no concern for her customers-- stated. "I'm on break."
The customers, who probably had already been charged for vehicles, were hostages.

Let Hertz keep up this type of corporate climate and there will be no more Hertz.

As one of my mentors said to me, "You must acknowledge your mistake. Say how you'll fix them, then fix them for all the world to see."
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Who cares what the Hertz PR person has to say? The scary thing is that it took a video posted on the Internet to get the company even to RESPOND.

This isn't a PR or marketing issue; it's an operational issue, requiring no explanation or spin other than a 'we're going to fix it.' And then they have to really do so...

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this: In the PR response, Ms Rivera mentions the presence of self-service kiosks as a positive point -- completely ignoring the fact that the customer specifically pointed out that none of them were working! This so-called "response" is a sham and merely clarifies 100-fold that Hertz plain-and-simple does not care. I knew there was a reason I always use the smaller companies ~

The PR response was not well crafted. It was a sales pitch that seems to come straight from the marketing material. It did not sympathize with the customer at all, nor did it make the customer feelas if they can trust Hertz in the future as a travel partner.

I hope for Hertz's sake, the video does not spiral into a viral marketing campaign against the company. If it does, I feel sorry for them and this poor PR person.

It's easy to say walk to another rental car counter, but what if these people had made reservations for a Hertz car in advance, either by phone, online, or thru a travel agent? I'm guessing their credit card is being charged whether they pick up the car or not, so they'd be reluctant to go to another counter.

Anyway, Hertz's PR response is weak and looks like the lawyers edited it before she posted it.

A weak response... but not terrible under the circumstances. Say nothing inflammatory, but make people 'feel' heard.

The entire situation shows the limitations of a mega-brand. This one location and one day of short-staffing now reflects upon the entire brand.

If I were in PR, I'd want to work for industries that are organized on a smaller scale, with the luxury to answer for themselves. That's just not possible under Hertz's current model (although they are doing some interesting re-org)

What is really good in this response is that they focused to feedback importance. But from the other hand, reading this not as communication person but as a customer, I would ask - "What have you done to this exactly employee? How are you going to improve this locally not only globally?" So, they really don't have these answers...

Let's not give the employee all the blame. Where was management, which left one employee to handle a 15-person line herself with not a working kiosk in site? That's not the employee's fault, who probably makes a bit over minimum wage. Did she handle things well, no. But how many of these angry customers took the situation out on her. What business did that guy have in pushing that camera in her face? Just take your business elsewhere. She might have just had it. And if her shift was over, maybe she had to pick up her kids from a sitter's house, care for an elderly parent, or study for an exam she has tomorrow at the local community college so she can find A BETTER JOB. This is what happens all the time. Blame the little guy. Fire her, and give management a raise. We've all seen the great wisdom of leadership at GM, Ford, and Citibank among others. Put the blame where it belongs, with the overpaid managers and executives who take home huge salaries, bonuses, and treat their employees like they treat their customers. This is the American way today, and that's why we are about to go through the worst recession in this nation's history.

Paula Rivera made a bad situation worse. Her first words should have been something like, "There is absolutely no excuse for what happened at that airport counter."

She also noted that feedback is important and they'll act on it. They should have procedures in place so that feedback doesn't come to them via cnn.

Wow...what kind of response is that? It did absolutely nothing for Hertz - the rep should have just stayed quite.

There was no apology, no action taken, no accountability and no solution offered. Poor, poor communication.

I wonder if Paula's grandmother had the same experience at Hertz if she would have offered the same response...

All I can say is "Happy Recession, Hertz!"

What puzzles me is why didn't they just go to another rental car counter?

The greatest weapon against bad customer service is choice: the choice to take your business elsewhere and never return.

I agree that this was an awful response. A good response to a situation like this should offer explanations and not excuses. The writer should have investigated what exactly occurred that day and what specific actions were taken regarding that employee and/or branch. Only after explaining what happened, can the writer say something like, "obviously this employee did not meet our high-level of customer service.

First of all, I think more companies need to be aware that they are constantly being judged & the force that is social media along w/ their customers are always watching and waiting for them to make a wrong move. The sooner they realize this and take action to always be 'perfect,' the better.

As for their PR reaction--too much on the sales side. Keep the sales pitch out of the apology and take serious action to correct what was wrong. Answer questions--Is the employee being reprimanded? When are changes going to happen? How was this particular situation 'made right'?

Hertz did not apologize or admit that they did anything wrong. This was a poor reaction to a video that could certainly hurt their business.

All the major rental companies have terrible customer service - Herz, Avis, Eurocar, Thrifty, Budget - and they all have appalling websites to book through too. I ended up using a small independent company in Australia that had far better service and was much cheaper. They just stick to a fleet of two types of car, which keeps their costs down and they concentrate on making the experience easy. It's not rocket science. All the other big franchises have just got sloppy off the back of corporate accounts.