Alamo complaint

[FraserLynn]

Just to share one of my recent experiences.

I turned up at the Alamo office at Union Square in San Francisco at 10.30 which was obviously peak time as the queue snaked out of the building and all the way up the road. All of the other rental companies were empty without any queue at all.

I have to say my heart dropped at the thought of standing there waiting, they also had a queue supervisor in place. The difference was that she was fantastic. She kept everyone informed, helped them to start to get the paperwork done, chatted with everyone, created a few good laughs, gave some insights to the famous landmarks around us, she did a front of queue celebration with everyone as they got there, helped shift luggage so that people didn't have to bring it into the queue and got to know everyone's names. What looked like at least a 2 hour wait, was actually only 45 mins and it passed with very little stress because of this ladies attitude.

As everyone has noted, it is the person who make the difference.

Unfortunately, the guy on the desk then went into full on sales mode, telling me the car wasn't big enough (it was a full size SUV!) telling me my road side assistance wasn't on their system and so wouldn't count etc etc

[steph_goodrum]

Interesting to note that "booking with Virgin" seemed to allow you to use the kiosk, so perhaps in future everyone should say yes

[Macka]

It looks like they don't want you to use the Kiosk as they don't get the chance to upsell you. I don't think Alamo care about how their staff treat the customers, at least not as much as nickle and diming them. If they did, they'd have sorted it out by now. People have been stressing about the hard sell at Car hire desks for as long as I can remember.

[lissybubs]

Hi John - No sorry I didn't but I'm kicking myself now as I wish I had!

Don't think it will be hard for alamo to identify though - there were 2 employees working upfront:-
* one white male (wearing a white shirt) who appeared very chatty & friendly to anyone losing the will to live once they spotted how long the line was
* and the other was this lady - who was large african american (wearing a blue shirt).

My confirmation shows I finished at the kiosk @ 5:38pm. Hope this helps. She definitely needs some extra face-to-face customer training!!

Did you get her name by any chance as I know Alamo take their customer service very seriously and would almost certainly like to know about this employee?

[vickk]

We landed at mco tue night and there was a tremendous line at alamo. think the airport had been shut due to lightening so planes that had been circling landed close together. anyway made my way to the kiosks to be met by an alamo guy who was just the opposite of the lady described. He was helping people to use the machines and event though I knew what to do he still kept coming over to check all was ok. 5 minutes and I was on the way to the garage.

[E. Cosgrove]

Just to share one of my recent experiences.

I turned up at the Alamo office at Union Square in San Francisco at 10.30 which was obviously peak time as the queue snaked out of the building and all the way up the road. All of the other rental companies were empty without any queue at all.

I have to say my heart dropped at the thought of standing there waiting, they also had a queue supervisor in place. The difference was that she was fantastic. She kept everyone informed, helped them to start to get the paperwork done, chatted with everyone, created a few good laughs, gave some insights to the famous landmarks around us, she did a front of queue celebration with everyone as they got there, helped shift luggage so that people didn't have to bring it into the queue and got to know everyone's names. What looked like at least a 2 hour wait, was actually only 45 mins and it passed with very little stress because of this ladies attitude.

As everyone has noted, it is the person who make the difference.

I like the sound of that as we have a car to collect from Union Square in just over 2 weeks!��

[FraserLynn]

I like the sound of that as we have a car to collect from Union Square in just over 2 weeks!��

My top tip would be to get there early or after noon...

[freddiehollie]

Having just returned:-( You might like to know what happened when we went to pick up our car, as a word of warning.

As always car (7 seat people carrier) was booked via uscarhire.co.uk the service has always been fantastic.

When I originally booked & got the reference code, I went to the Alamo site to pre-register, again as always.

I then printed out their confirmation & bar code.

On arrival at MCO I commented to my DW how glad I was we had pre-registered as the queue at Alamo stretched right down the car hire hall snaking round & round:-(:-(

We wandered straight over to the garage, with a big smile knowing we had saved at least a couple of hours.

As we approached the main kiosk, a lady asked to see my paperwork. I showed her the Alamo print off.

To which she said (with a huge smile) "sorry sir, you have to go back to the main desk"
To which I replied "sorry but no I don't" "I have all the correct paperwork & the confirmation bar code on this ALAMO receipt"

I proceeded to (very politely) point to the row of cars I could select from, as it was only 3 rows away.

To which she said "that's fine, have a nice evening"

Collected the car, drove to the exit, handed over, DL, CC, etc which were checked & we were on our way.

I bet when we were checking in at AKV, had I just accepted her request we would still have been at the Alamo desk:-(:-(

So my warning is. If you have the correct paperwork, politely stand your ground, you (probably) know more than they do;-);-)