GREAT Hertz Experience in Colorado Springs
I was on a late flight from LAX to COS this past Monday evening. The scheduled arrival time was 11:39 PM, so I called Avis (the agency I was forced to use by my employer) to make sure they would still be open. A rather surly rep told me that he was closing promptly at midnight. I asked if any other agencies stayed open later and he told me no, but that I could take a cab to my hotel and they would hold my reservation for 24 hours. Gee, thanks.
So in what turned out to be a moment of prescience, I went online and booked a Hertz reservation as a backup. I figured that if I got in after midnight maybe I'd get lucky and ONE of them would still be processing a line of customers or something.
Due to bad weather, we were delayed about two hours, meaning we didn't land in COS until after 1:30 AM. I made haste to the rental car desks, and was initially dismayed to see them all dark and empty. But then a gentleman walked out of the Hertz door and asked, "Are you Mr. DJ Iceman?" Shocked, I told him I was. He said he'd been waiting for me, as he'd called United to verify I was on the flight and didn't want me to be stranded overnight (it was so late that even the cab stand was empty).
His selflessness and dedication to customer service meant that I and four of my coworkers (who all had reservations from different agencies) were able to get to our hotels and get a reasonable night's sleep. I asked how I could best make sure that he was recognized by his management for what he'd done, and he simply told me that he was only doing his job. Without keeping him there too much longer (he should have left for home almost two hours before, by all rights), I told him that his kind of dedication is far from the norm in today's service industries.
I did submit online feedback via Hertz.com, calling him out by name and relating this same story. I've also been telling everyone who cares (like in this thread) that Hertz really did right by me in this case. Like others, I'd become disillusioned by the decline in service quality shown by Hertz over the past few years. But I definitely have to give credit where it's due, and it's to Mike who works the late shift at the COS airport location!