Car rental not Abel to live up to its brand promise

We recently came across an excellent example of how businesses can erode their brand value chasing short-term profits.

Abel is Queensland’s low cost car rental company, promising great value and exceptional customer service. And they do a fairly good job at delivering their promise. On one condition - That you bring the car exactly as it was when you rented it.

When we returned our rental car recently in Brisbane, the staff found a tiny car park dent on the front wing that we had not even noticed. Well, it shouldn’t have been the end of the world because we had paid for the most comprehensive damage liability waiver, limiting our liability to $275 AUD.

But what we didn’t know was that Abel has a $330 dollar accident-processing fee written into their small print. That’s more than the liability itself!

On top of this, they charged $53 demurrage for the car being taken off the road for repair, and $277 for our liability, which is $2 more than agreed in the rental agreement.

Whether it was in their small print or not, the marketing was clearly framed to deceive the customer and when the charges were questioned, the illusion of customer service quickly evaporated. If we didn’t settle in full on the spot, they would continue charging us for the car rental until we paid. And it wasn’t just us, another customer got stung for the same thing while we were still in the store.

The core of any successful brand is telling an authentic story, and we would have happily have told others of our positive experience if Abel had lived up to their brand promise. Instead, we quickly told everyone we know in the area to avoid Abel like a plague.

We subsequently rented a couple of cars from Thrifty, who provided genuinely friendly and honest customer service, did not have any horrors in small print, and seemed to have a very reasonable attitude when assessing the cars on return. On one occasion, they didn’t even check the car telling is that as long as we haven’t crashed it, a few nicks and scratches don’t matter, and that they trust us when we say we’ve filled it with fuel. Now that’s service that we’ll recommend.

Thrifty have won themselves a long term customer by projecting a very positive brand image that cares for and trusts their customers, whereas Abel’s pursuit of short term profits has cost them more than the extra charges incurred.

The message is simple, if you want to build a valuable and sustainable brand, your service must live up to your promise. If it doesn’t, you’re digging your brand an early grave.

This blog is supported by Scamper - The pioneers in Sustainable Brand Strategy