Enterprise Rent A- Cat is a company that is considered to be one of the best and among the top car rental businesses in the world. This is due to its specialization and prowess in ensuring that the customers are satisfied with its products. Its customer service has been identified seven times hence the highest with regards to satisfaction of customers. Technically, it is the customers who ensures that a particular company grows. This can be done through the loyalty of the customers towards their respective companies. For the case of Enterprise Rent-A- Car, it has been able to provide the customers with very high quality products hence being able to cement the good relationship between the customers and the company. The company buys approximately seven percent of all the new automobile that are sold in the United States.
Despite having many branches in the United States and some parts of the world, its primary focus relates to the local rental car market (Burns, 124). This is because the company specializes in car rentals to those customers who require a replacement car because of different unfortunate occurrences. Some of these occurrences includes occurrence of accidents, theft, mechanical repairs of the previously owned cars. Additionally, other primary customers are those who need vehicles for special occasions like short business trips or even leisure trips.
The Unique Selling Proportion for the car is “we’ll pick you up.” Despite the fact that each and every car rental company collects people, the company has worked extremely hard to the extent that the UPS has become one of the primary services they offer. The company has implemented its market differentiation through the provision of superior services to its clients. It is because of this service provision that the customers have become loyal to the company.
Customer services delivered by the company
Some of the services provided by the company include car rental reservations. A customer is allowed to make a reservation any time of the day or night because this is a 24 hour service. The company also provides sales services to their customers where the customer is given the opportunity to purchase used cars. Fleet management services are also provided by the company. The company provides these services to the customers with the highest level of professionalism.
Competitive advantage by the company
When compared to other competitors, the company has been able to affordably expand its fleet. Due to the slumping economy, most of the car rental firms have seized from purchasing fleets of cars from the automakers. Companies like Hertz have been scaling back. However, the company has not been able scale back like the other companies (Cravens et al, 73). Consumers as well as corporate clients have continuously shown interest in the hybrid cars. The company was able to add approximately 5000 gas/electric hybrid SUVs and cars to its car nationwide. This is definitely a clear advantage to the company since their competitors cannot buy new vehicles during this bad economy.
The company was also ranked as the best in line with client satisfaction within the industry in one of the surveys conducted by J. D. Power and Associates. The consumers gave the company very high scores in areas of reservation process, rental car, pick up process, shuttle bus as well as fees and costs. The major factor that contributed to high ranking is the fact that it offers that best pick up services offering a rate of 25% lower than the competitors.
Measuring customer satisfaction
When the company was founded, its motto was, “Take care of your customer and employees first, and profit will take care of itself.” As the company grows, it becomes difficult to provide the customers with the undivided personal attention they deserve. As a result, the company devised a way of measuring customer service satisfaction.
The method implemented in measuring customer satisfaction was referred to as ESQI (Enterprise Service Quality Index). To make the survey meaningful, the company cut down the surveys to two questions. The method of survey was later refined so as to compare the ESQi scores among the branches instead of region by region. The survey was conducted on a quarterly basis through the year.
This process involved the targeting of the customers who were very satisfied with the services provided and would therefore come back for the services again. These were customers who filled the top boxes on the survey. The studying of the data identified that the completely satisfied clients were more than three times likely to come back as repeat clients (Riggs, 301). This study therefore showed that the client’s satisfaction was a direct impact profits and sales. The collection of information from the customers’ opinion is a perfect example of qualitative data.
As a competitive the company tries to locate its branches close to the customers. The main reason for this fact is because car rental industry is a very competitive market. The industry is characterized by many companies each trying to outdo each other. Since the enterprise target to outperform the competitors through focusing on efficient provision of customer services, it has been able to situate the branches near the customers.
References
Burns, Stan. Exceeding expectations: the Enterprise Rent-A-Car story. Lyme, CT: Greenwich Pub. Group, 1997. Print.
Cravens, David W., Charles W. Lamb, and Victoria Lynn Crittenden. Strategic marketing management cases. 7th ed. Boston, Mass.: McGraw-Hill, 2002. Print.
Kazanjian, Kirk. Exceeding customer expectations: what Enterprise, America's #1 car rental company, can teach you about creating lifetime customers. New York: Currency Doubleday, 2007. Print.
Kazanjian, Kirk. Exceeding customer expectations what Enterprise Rent-A-Car can teach us about creating lifetime customers.. Concordville, Pa.: Soundview Executive Book Summaries ;, 2007. Print.
Riggs, Thomas. Encyclopedia of major marketing campaigns. Detroit: Gale Group, 2007. Print.
