A friend recently got into a car accident and was rear-ended. Fortunately, the accident was low-speed and my friend went to a doctor and hopefully will be ok. So in order to have a car to drive he had to get a rental car and I went with him since I’ve had experience renting cars in the past.
The dealership was very busy on a Saturday morning, and it was a bee-hive with activity. As the worker bees were buzzing about I could see that the inventory was low. So it was no surprise when the employee said that the selection was limited. It was a big SUV or a bigger SUV to choose from. My friend didn’t like either choice but was going to accept the SUV. I knew that he wouldn’t be comfortable driving it, much less want to pay for all the gas that pig would take so I asked if a car from another location could be brought. He said yes and that it might take a half hour. So we waited. My friend loved the car he got and I was excited about finding the great customer service.
I called on Monday and complimented him to the manager and the manager was surprised and grateful for the call. She said that they don’t often get calls that are positive and really appreciated it. It is sad that when you compliment people they act surprised and often say they don’t get complimented much. When someone does a job well that is important to acknowledge when they fail in their duty.
The point however of writing this is that you don’t know until you ask. My friend who was shy to ask for another car would have been badly served by accepting something that isn’t a good fit. It doesn’t make sense to anyone to accept something you don’t love and isn’t a fit for your lifestyle. For example, my friend has very limited parking space so trying to park that SUV beast would have been a stressful nightmare. He got a car that is small and easy to park and has fantastic gas mileage. What more could you want in a rental car right? Yes, it’s a little smaller than I would like, but it’s not my car and it’s not my business. Whatever makes someone happy is what we should aim for. Not what we want if we were them. It is so critical to ask if something is ok because good intentions are not enough.