10 ways to Improve a Customer Experience that still Hertz.
(For context, this article is written about an experience with Hertz in Jan. of 2020, en route to and arriving at the SFO airport, one of their top 10 US car rental locations prior to their filing for bankruptcy.)
You might recall the 2019 snafu between Hertz and Accenture, where Hertz sued the consulting giant in for 32 million over several items they claimed the company failed to deliver while they were doing work on the Hertz website and corresponding mobile applications. It seemed as though Hertz had a clear goal of improving their digital experience, but how did than pan out a year later?
I am a Hertz “Gold” Member. I believe this is the generic status every person gets when they join the Hertz loyalty program, but these programs are designed to give customers a sense of importance and personal attention so that they keep coming back. The reason this is important is that this article is about CX (Customer Experience) which encompasses all parts of the experience. However, I’ll touch heavily here on the Hertz mobile app and website as parts of that, highlighting areas for improvement by count.
For those who aren’t in the CX industry, we often talk about it like going to a football game.
The UI (User Interface) of the football stadium box office ticketing app plays a part in the UX (User Experience) that you have when buying a game ticket. However, everything from that ticketing app to the concession stand, to the seat that you sit in for the game makes up the full Customer Experience.
Hertz website boasts that it is #1 in Customer Satisfaction in rental cars. I had an opportunity to put this to the test this week. This journey, for me, began with a return visit to the Hertz mobile app.
This particular evening I was flying into SFO late at night for a big meeting Monday morning. I needed to book a car before leaving Atlanta at the airport so that I would have a car upon landing (~4.5 hrs later).
I was off to a slow start. While attempting to load the app, I was already noticing some significant lag. I figured it had to be my airport connection. Unfortunately for me, multiple login attempts later, the experience ended with an error message that stated “We are experiencing issues, please try again later,” but it still logs you in. (#1)
Upon login, you are greeted with a lovely image above the fold with a clear indicator of where to start your next car reservation and I was happy to be on my way.
After scrolling down, I noticed that there was a clear issue with the home screen card load state. This could have been that the mobile app was trying to call one too many endpoints for data to show on the dashboard. Instead of continuing to show a pretty loading state where the user knows this isn't the right experience, the dashboard cards loaded showing buttons with text like “Label” Title” “Header” as depicted in the image below. (#2) A shame for Hertz, but many consumers abandon a session after errors like this display as they have already reduced trust in the reliability of the app.
After a while (2–5 min.) of after closing and reopening the app enough, I was able to have it to load correctly. I navigated to an economy car and, though there was little more lag, was able to check out smoothly. The E-Commerce portion of the app seemed to be the most seamless. I received a digital reservation card to add to my iPhone wallet, so I did.
Upon arrival at the airport, I hopped aboard the plane train headed over to the Hertz lot with phone & Digital Wallet card in hand. I looked down at the card, hoping for an indicator to where I would find my car, but so far I couldn't find any information of use. (#3)
Once I arrived and followed the signage to the Hertz lot, I stared at my Hertz wallet card again hoping that some rental company magic would update my info. real-time with where to find my car as I was on the lot. Unfortunately, no luck.
As a matter of fact, if I hadn’t been a returning Hertz customer, at this point I wouldn’t have a clue what to do at all. Walking out into the garage there is literally no indicator of what to do next. (#4)
Because I’m a regular Hertz customer (due to a partnership with some of my clients) I knew that there is always a digital display that will show your name and the area for you to go pick up your car. Also, because of my frequency to this airport, I knew that it didn’t exist near the deck entrance but near a customer service office in the center of the deck.
I stumbled upon the board late and tired with my suitcase in tow. My name isn’t there. I walk inside.
The gentleman behind the desk could read my face. He could tell I was tired.
“Hi, I don’t see my name on the board,” I said. Expecting to hear something along the lines of “Well let's get you on the way…”
“Well, how early or late are you?”
“I’m at the same time I marked online,” I continued.
“Well, how long ago did you make the reservation, was it recent?”
“Three hours ago before I took off,” I responded.
“Well, that's the problem,” he stated proudly. (#5)
I proceeded through the motions because I was tired. I asked how early one would need to book online to not have to come in and wait to talk to somebody to find their card “I don't know but at least… like… 8 hours (#6) ” he mentions as if I should have known this is common knowledge.
After finding the car, I prepared to exit the lot. There is frequently a line to, but I recently remembered that Hertz is partnered with CLEAR. I just happened to be a CLEAR member and I had seen the machines by the gate. It made sense to use it, so I headed to the app to figure out what I needed to do to indicate I’m a member so I could get out of the gate faster.
After navigating through the entire dashboard, and then the tabular global nav. Nothing. It's fair to say that if I hadn't seen the machine at the gate before, I’d have had no idea the program existed. (#7) After some Googling, I found a link that sent me to an area I could sync the two accounts, so I did!
I drove to the exit, expecting to scan my fingers and go. However, I was stopped and asked for my information and license anyway. (#8) Well, that partnership seemed nice in theory, but unless they have figured out a way for your fingerprint to confirm the car's current mileage, it's pretty pointless in my opinion, you’ll still need to stop and talk to somebody.
I left to pull onto the road unimpressed and very tired. The car was clean with no issues once on the road. Drop off is always a breeze (this is my favorite part about using Hertz! It’s so easy!), but I can’t stop thinking about the reservation and pickup experience.
It was far from boasting a “#1 in Customer Satisfaction” award to me.
Recapping the 8 largest areas for improvement:
- (Mobile App) Load time, lag & error state that continues to allow a login
- (Mobile App) Dashboard card load states
- (Mobile) Digital wallet card serves no purpose
- (In Person) Guidance on what to do upon arrival/Location of the Digital Board.
5.-6. (In Person) Indicating your digital experience issues are the customer’s fault and the sync time between reservation and the board is 8+ hours
7. (In Person) There is no indicator as to how to setup CLEAR with your Hertz account in any of the main nav of the app
8. (In Person) The CLEAR checkout actually doesn’t speed up the process at all
A BIG part of these issues was focused on wrapping in the digital experience and during one of the most important parts of the customer journey, making the reservation.
If customer’s abandon the reservation journey online, they will never make it to the deck to even experience these other issues. As somebody who works at an agency, but has spent many years focusing on product management, it doesn’t take an Accenture size firm or 32 million to solve these problems.
My recommendation:
- You need a Product Strategist and a good Business Analyst to take your customer personas and turn them into real use cases.
- The app, at minimum, needs a UX and Information Architecture overhaul. You have a customer's birthday information as data. Heck, you have their whole driver’s license on file. Who told you it was a good use of dashboard space to surface AARP senior discounts to 30 somethings?
- Get a great visual designer to create a new and consistent design system. You don’t need three different tones of yellow on a page.
- You need a very experienced Dev & Infrastructure team. The loading issues have to go.
