National Car Rental maintained its undefeated record in BTN's annual Car Rental Survey, earning the top score among travel buyers this year as it has in all six years of the survey's history, while its sister brand, Enterprise, reclaimed the second-place position it has held every year besides 2019.
Total average scores, based on buyers' ratings of their car rental suppliers across 11 criteria, were up for both National and Enterprise compared with the 2019 survey. National earned the highest score in all but one of the criteria measured by BTN, and Enterprise had the biggest year-over-year improvement, with its score up 0.17 points on the survey's five-point scale. Both Avis and sister brand Budget, which in 2019 reached the usage threshold to be included in the survey for the first time, also improved their scores year over year. Hertz was the only brand in the survey to have a year-over-year decline in its total score.
National has been in an "upward trajectory" since its 2007 acquisition, along with Alamo, by Enterprise Holdings, said Neil Abrams, founder and president of Abrams Consulting Group. The brand, which he said he always regarded as a "sleeping dog" in the pre-EHI years when it perennially lagged behind Avis and Hertz, has flourished under the capital and enormous fleet available since.
"The beauty of the consolidation is they're renting the same cars out to different customers at different rates and different levels of service," Abrams said.
While outscoring its competitors in nearly every criteria in the survey, National's strongest areas were in upgrades and VIP services, providing clean and well-serviced cars, complaint resolution, account reps, productivity of car rental and overall value, all categories in which it scored above the 4.5 mark.
"We take pride in our account management team, and we've been historically strong in that area," said Don Moore, SVP of business rental sales and international tour at Enterprise Holdings. "That's in talking to our customer base, in regards to how we keep in close contact to our partners and ask them constantly what the customers' needs are."
In terms of rental efficiency, National this year continued to improve its Emerald Aisle offering, including improved signage, and the company further is exploring technological tweaks to let travelers get to their car and off the lot even quicker, Moore said.
Avis, meanwhile, improved its total score 0.05 points year over year, but its scores improved more strongly in the categories related to customer service and data.
"We believe that this recognition is a result of our diligent work to be a business that puts its customers first," according to Avis Budget Group SVP of sales Beth Kinerk, who was not available for an interview for this story but provided an email statement to BTN. "Feedback from our customers directly drives our innovation and fuels enhancements to our processes across both the Avis and Budget brands."
As it did last year, Avis outscored all of its competitors for its mobile app. One key new feature added during the past year was a "split my bill" option, so travelers combining a business and leisure trip or adding ancillaries not covered by policy could use their corporate and personal cards to pay for the respective parts of their bills, according to Kinerk.
Budget's score improved 0.07 points year over year, and the brand tied National for the highest score in negotiating pricing and amenities.
Hertz, which did not respond to a request for an interview, fell 0.09 points in total score compared with last year. The brand's best scores were in providing clean, well-serviced cars and for its upgrades and service for VIPs.
Abrams noted that Hertz has been through "organizational toil" during the past five years. In the past few years, it seemed to be righting its course under CEO Kathryn Marinello, having been on a path of topline growth and earning the top spot in the J.D. Power 2019 North America Rental Car Satisfaction survey. As demand plummeted under the weight of the Covid-19 crisis, however, Hertz in recent weeks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Marinello left the company with EVP and North American chief retail operations officer Paul Stone stepping in as its new president and CEO.
While Hertz's circumstances are the direst of the major car rental companies, all will have to reduce fleet sizes, as the crisis should suppress demand for the rest of this year and beyond, Abrams said. Even prior to the crisis, suppliers sought to generate more revenue out of fewer cars, he said. "Demand dropped precipitously, and it's very hard to say where this is going to end up," he said. "When you look at the airlines, half of [car rental companies'] businesses are coming off the planes."
Moore said he is seeing some "positive signs" the demand is starting to pick up, albeit nowhere near the levels seen prior to the pandemic, and some stores that had temporarily closed are reopening.
On the business side, car rental could play a modified role, at least in the early days of rebuilding demand. In a recent series of calls hosted by BTN, some buyers said they would increase use of car rental in lieu of flights or ride-hailing apps, saying they preferred keeping employees in a vehicle with single occupancy for the moment.
"We've been told by many of our business partners that they will recommend driving versus flying out of the gate, so we're prepared for that piece," Moore said. "Customers might keep their car a little longer, so the length of rental will increase slightly."
Corporate buyers are playing a role as rental car companies shape their policies to deal with the pandemic. Avis Budget established a corporate advisory board to provide guidance on travel policy revisions and contingency planning, according to Kinerk. National is looking at revamping some corporate-specific options, such as its mileage calculator that helps buyers determine when to use car rental versus other forms of transportation, to reflect Covid-19 concerns, Moore said.
Buyer priorities also will shift. The "clean, well-serviced vehicle" metric is taking on a whole new meaning as all the companies are detailing information regarding sanitization of all touchpoints within vehicles. Their apps, which reduce the time and interaction associated with rentals, are taking on a new importance as well.
"National was already down that path, but you now need to be able to provide vehicles with the lowest-touch scenario," Moore said. "On the technology side, we've dropped everything to focus on the customer experience in renting a car, and we'll be trialing different products in June."
Methodology
BTN's Car Rental Survey
From April 9 through May 12, 2020, BTN surveyed travel manager and travel buyer members of the BTN Research Council and a randomly selected subset of qualified subscribers of BTN and Travel Procurement. Equation Research hosted the survey and tabulated the results, and totals were based on 327 respondents. Those respondents graded only those car rental companies with which they had negotiated contracts or booked meaningful amounts of business in the past year. Brands that did not reach a minimum usage threshold were disqualified from the survey. BTN averaged the category scores to create an overall score for each car rental company. Responses from participants who did not respond to questions for a particular category or brand were not included in that category or brand's average. Categories were consistent with those measured in the 2019 survey.