Following on from our post in September regarding negative feedback, here is part 2 of the series. If you haven’t read the other post, you can find it here {Customer Feedback Is Not Always As It Seems}.

We are trying to highlight what impact a negative review can have on other potential customers and if they would feel the same having read both sides of the story.

Here is a review left on our Trustpilot profile.

Rating: 1/5
Title: It is SCAM
Review: We rented a car from them. They promised us that we won’t need a credit card and can rent a car using a debit card. The conversation went well, they charged us and emailed us voucher, the voucher clearly mentioned we needed a credit card, they booked us with europcar which refused to give us car because we didn’t have credit card. We called Indigocarhire, they refused to cancel our booking and refund our money. So basically we were left with charge on our card and no car. Their customer service is super arrogant and useless. It is a scam.

You can see this review and many others here.

Here is what actually happened.

Our customer contacted us direct from Faro Airport. They had a arrived with a booking with another supplier to be told that they would need a credit card or they could not hire a car. A quick google search and they found us, when dealing with enquiries for hiring with a debit card we have solid procedures in place to ensure we can help.

First of all we have to check that the card is a valid Visa or Mastercard and not a Visa Electron or Electronic Use only card. Then we have to check that the words/numbers on the card are embossed and not printed. These are the 2 most important factors, we cannot take the enquiry any further until we have asked these questions. This customer confirmed that his card was a Visa Debit card with embossed numbers and after further checks he met the other criteria.

The reason for this is because any car rental supplier can take payment for the rental cost on pretty much any card. But, when you arrive to collect the car the deposit must be left by a specific type of card to give the supplier added security. Pre-Paid cards and electronic use card offer none of this.

We went ahead and made the booking for the customer, dealing with bookings when the customer is effectively standing at the rental desk already presents its own problems, how we normally have to give suppliers 2 hours notice for a booking. This was overcome by giving the supplier a quick call. The issue this causes is that making a booking for this minute means the system will ‘lock the booking in’ at the agreed collection time and when card details are entered the rental cost is taken. We explained to the customer very clearly, if he wishes to cancel this booking and get a refund then it has to be done before the booking is locked in, before the time he is supposed to collect the vehicle.

So the customer now has a booking with a supplier that is in a position to help in his situation. He approaches the rental desk with his email confirmation and when prompted, he supplied his card to leave a deposit. The card he gave the rental assistant was a Visa Debit Card from a bank we have never heard of with the words “ELECTRONIC USE ONLY” printed in large letters across the top.

Rather than calling us before the collection time to let us know of the issue, he decided to argue the point with the rental assistant. By the time we were made aware of this issue, it was too late.

Our team went above and beyond to speak to the rental assistant and come up with a way for our customer to be able to drive away and enjoy his time in Portugal. In the end he was pretty lucky, on another day or if there was another rental assistant on duty he may well have not received a car or indeed a refund. but, with a little bit of sweet talking we managed to save the day.

So, i’m sure you can understand how surprised we were to read the above review when it was posted a day later. Accusing us of a scam, leaving out what lengths we went to to get him a car even though all of the issues that arose were because of the mis-information he provided to us, and indeed the supplier he had originally booked with.

Could We Have Dealt With This Differently / Will We Next Time?

We are not posting these reviews to single people out or to make ourselves feel good, the idea is that people will read them and have a better understanding of why we ask for such information and why it is so important that we have an accurate picture of our customers requirements.

We do this for a living and have learned so much over the last 9 years. We ask every question we possibly can, but aside from breaking regulations and asking for a photo of the card, there is no way for us to know if the information being given to us is correct.

Thankfully these events are not the norm, in-fact they are very 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.

Our regular customers and new customers that have done their due diligence will know that we as a company, pride ourselves on the service that we offer and the feedback we get always reflects this, well not always..

It is so easy these days for someone to go online and leave feedback about a service they have received, an event they have attended or a product they have bought which is great news for shops and suppliers as word of mouth and personal recommendations are very important when an individual is looking for said service or product.

There are some downsides however, which we and many other companies have to live with. The biggest by far are negative reviews, these can really hurt a businesses reputation. We all know that things can go wrong in any business and one of the benefits of an online presence is to show our potential customers how we react when things do go wrong. One of our bug bears however are the negative reviews that are not entirely accurate. We have decided to run a series of blogs detailing these reviews, the facts behind them and the lengths that we go to when a customer of ours isn’t getting the service or product they expect.

Here is a review left on our Trustpilot profile.

Rating: 1/5
Title: Awful!
Review: My husband and I came in late to Rome airport, ready for a 2 hour drive to Orvieto, to find that Indigo had cancelled our car rental without informing us. This is despite us having email confirmation of the booking and no contact since to say there was an issue. When we spoke to Indigo, the man on the phone was VERY defensive – in fact he didn’t say sorry once. When I stated that we felt very screwed over by Indigo he got very angry and said it is OUR fault because we never received a voucher and we should have known better – he was extremely passive aggressive – such awful customer ‘service’. Safe to say we will not be using Indigo again, which is a shame for them since we have used them many times before so they have lost loyal customers.

You can see this review and many others here.

Here is what actually happened.

Our customer booked their vehicle taking advantage of the £20 down payment when booking with the remaining balance being taken 5 days before they are due to collect the car. When this date came, the system tried to take the payment and the payment was declined. There are many reasons why this could happen and the system makes us aware.

Emails were sent to the customer to advise them of the problem and to try and complete the transaction with either the correct card details or even a new payment card. No response was received by our office or by our service providers.

When the customer arrived at the airport rental desk at 10pm there was no car for them, as there was no confirmed booking. They called us on our out of hours helpline and advised us of their problem. When we explained the situation as outlined above, this wasn’t really the response they expected. However, we then followed this up by offering to place another booking with a different supplier who had a vehicle available. They took us up on this offer and were quickly on their way to their destination.

If the voucher had been printed or downloaded prior to collection of the car this problem would have been highlighted and could have been rectified.

Could We Have Dealt With This Differently / Will We Next Time?

We hope you agree that we did everything we could to avoid the situation happening in the first place and that we dealt with the issue quickly and efficiently when it occurred. We feel that having comments such as “screwed over by Indigo” and “such awful customer ‘service’” published online forever is very unfair when you are presented with the facts.

Our customers are entitled to make comments re our attitudes and if our attitude was anything less than customer friendly we apologise for this, however we maintain that our only outcome is the desire for a smooth-running rental and customer satisfaction.

We hope that this summary is helpful for others either wanting to gain more of an insight or those who have found themselves in a similar situation in the past and would like to avoid a repeat of their experience.

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.