It was mid-December when I contacted Budget Rent-a-Car saying that I needed a car on Maui on Christmas Day. “No way”, or something like that was the response. I had to understand, since Christmas Day begins the busiest week of the year in Hawaii.
I week later I was on a plane to Maui and got into a discussion with the guy next to me. He turned out to be a VP of National / Alamo Car Rental. I explained my Christmas Day dilemma and he said, “If I can get you a car, can we have your business?” I said, “You can for that trip, for sure. Where we go from there we will have to see; I have been loyal to Budget for more than 25 years.”
He gave me his card saying, “E-mail me your flight information and I will see what I can do”. I did, and when I arrived on Maui on Christmas Day, there was a driver waiting for me with a brand new car.
Well that was a year and a half ago, and I have not been back to Budget since.
It pays to be willing to go the extra mile to get business.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Customer Experiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.