Enterprise Rent-a-Car

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Enterprise Holdings is a privately held company formed in 2009 to operate three rental car subsidiaries: Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car, along with WeCar (the company's carsharing company^[1]), and its commercial fleet management, used car sales, and commercial truck rental operations.^[2]

Enterprise Holdings was formed as part of a reorganization that followed Enterprise Rent-A-Car's acquisition of Vanguard Automotive Group.^[2] The resulting company was 21st on the 2008 Forbes list of "Largest Private Companies in America."^[3]

Enterprise is headquartered in Clayton, Missouri, U.S., near St. Louis.^[4][5][6]

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the largest rental car company in North America,^[7] and has more than 5,399 “local market” locations (91% of all transactions), and 419 airport locations (9% of all transactions).^{[citation needed]} According to Detroit News^{[citation needed]}, Enterprise purchases seven percent of all new automobiles sold in the United States.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s primary focus is the local rental car market, specializing in car rentals to consumers who need a replacement car as the result of an accident, mechanical repair, theft, or who require a vehicle for a special occasion such as a short business or leisure trip. In the late 1990s^{[citation needed]}, Enterprise Rent-A-Car also began expanding its operations to include the airport market, and now serves airports in the United States, Canada, the UK and Ireland.

By 2005, Enterprise Rent-A-Car's customer service has been recognized seven times by J.D. Power and Associates as highest in customer satisfaction for rental car companies at or near airports.^[8] The company was named ninth on Business Week's top 25 companies customer service list in 2007.^[9][10]

Fleet management controversy

To reduce costs, some safety features standard in retail models are ordered by Enterprise without those features. During model years 2006-2008, 66,000 of the Chevrolet Impalas the company ordered were purchased without side-curtain airbags, saving the company $11.5 million ($175 per vehicle).^[11] The practice, which the company notes does not "violate any federal mandate", came to national attention when cars being retired from their rental fleet were sold with claims that side-curtain air bags were included.^[11] About 5,000 Chevrolet Cobalts and Buick LaCrosses were also purchased with the side air bags omitted.^[11] Enterprise admitted that it inaccurately advertised and sold 745 Chevrolet Impalas -- model years 2006 through 2008 -- that were identified online as having side air bags, when in fact they did not. A company spokesman said that it would inform customers who had bought the cars, and offer to buy them back from the customers if they would like. ^[11] According to Safety Research and Strategies, a safety research firm that regularly works with the automotive industry, it is a highly unusual practice to delete safety features. "I’ve never seen a standard safety feature removed from a vehicle. I’ve been doing this work for 17 years and, until now, had yet to see this happen,” said Sean Kane of Safety Research & Strategies. ^[11] Contrary to this, some sources have noted that buying fleet without normally standard features does occur, as auto manufacturers offer this option to fleet buyers.

Hiring practices

In 2006, Business Week listed Enterprise among the top ten places to begin a career.^[12] Although the company's pay for management trainees was among the lowest on the list (at an average $35,000), "those who catch on"^[12] quickly get a chance to run a branch office with the responsibility to generate a profit. Within five years, a successful manager take positions at headquarters or become area managers responsible for multiple branches.^[12]

WeCar

In 2008, Enterprise piloted its first on-campus car sharing program at Washington University.^[1] The program, called WeCar, was introduced at University of South Florida in July 2009.^[1]

Independent online community

Failing Enterprise^[13] is an online community for Enterprise Rent-A-Car customers and employees. Founded in December 2003 by a long-term customer^{[citation needed]}, the site and its discussion board (140,000+ posts) provide a venue for discussing Enterprise policies and practices.

One of Enterprise's most commonly criticized practices are to lead the customer to believe that optional protection packages are necessary and the only way to fully protect the rental vehicle.^{[citation needed]} Enterprise has also been criticized for upping the rate of vehicles without the customer's knowledge if the customer is unaware of the cost of the rental at the time of pick up. Other common criticisms include charging customers for pre-existing damage, charging credit cards on file without telling customers, lying about class sizes of vehicles available, and blaming lower level employees for occurrences to protect the higher ups.

Critics of Enterprise on the site tend to point out customer service problems and dissatisfaction with both employment conditions and the company’s ethics, while supporters of Enterprise tend to question the skills and motivation of former employees and the intelligence and character of customers.^{[citation needed]} Specific customer complaints include aggressive up-selling of the insurance products, dishonored reservations and long waits for cars.^[14] Specific employee complaints include high turnover, long hours, corporate disregard for branch staff lunch breaks and the treatment and compensation of lower-level employees.

In 2004, Enterprise began blocking access to Failing Enterprise from most internal corporate networks.^{[citation needed]} The site now^[when?] serves 60,000+ pages daily.

References

External links

• Enterprise official website
• WeCar official website