Travelers flying on cheap airplane tickets and staying at discount hotel rooms have become increasingly dissatisfied with car rental companies over the past two years who have instituted fees to offset declining revenue and cut costs by reducing staff and service, renting older cars, and deferring repairs since fewer people were traveling.
However a new survey of almost 12,000 renters by J.D. Power and Associates shows that customer satisfaction with car rental companies has returned to levels that existed prior to the economic downturn.
Every major car rental company achieved better customer satisfactions scores than last year. Enterprise Rent-A-Car earned the highest customer satisfaction rating for the seventh consecutive year. National Car Rental came in second, with Hertz ranked third.
The survey was based on customers who rented cars at airports in North America over the past 12 months ending in September. Six factors were used to measure overall customer satisfaction: costs and fees, reservation process, pick up process, vehicle rented, return process, and shuttle bus or van service.
The new higher renter satisfaction scores are likely the result of car rental companies adding staff over the past year to help improve service levels as well as adding newer and lower mileage cars to their fleets.
Six car rental companies had scores lower than the industry average: Advantage, Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, and Thrifty.
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