Hindered by travelers facing long wait times, reduced availability of new cars and overall frustration with the travel industry, customer satisfaction in the car rental industry has waned, although the three brands that have the largest share of corporate rentals all are performing better than the industry average, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 Rental Car Satisfaction Study of almost 6,000 renters, released today.
The satisfaction rating—based on costs and fees, the pick-up process, the rental car, the return process, the reservation process and shuttle bus or van transfers to rental facilities—dropped 17 points this year to 750 on a 1,000-point scale. In particular, the study pointed out that the 22-minute average wait time to pick up a car was longer than other wait-time aspects of travel, including hotel checkin, airport security and retrieving checked luggage.
The overall decline, however, largely follows a drop in satisfaction with all the aspects of travel, according to the study. "Rental car customers, in particular, are being faced with rising fuel prices and decreased availability of new rental vehicles, as major automotive manufacturers have reduced their rental fleet sales," Jim Gaz, J.D. Power and Associates senior director of travel and entertainment, said in a statement. "While the rental car industry faces its own specific challenges, customer satisfaction may also be influenced by the snowball effect from frustrations consumers are facing with the entire travel experience."
For the fourth year in a row, Enterprise Rent-A-Car was the highest-rated car brand in the study. It and the three brands that attribute the highest percentage of their revenue to business travel—Hertz Corp., National Car Rental System and Avis Rent A Car System—all scored higher than the industry average. National scored particularly well in its reservations process, according to the study.
Enterprise is widening the gap from its competitors in satisfaction and gets high marks for its cost and Web site functionality, according to Gaz. With the acquisition of National and Alamo Rent-A-Car
(BTN, April 23), it's also likely to give a boost to the ratings of those two brands, he said.
The study, now in its 12th year, is based on 5,859 responses from business and leisure travelers who rented from an airport location between September 2006 and September 2007.