InterRent Car Hire and CarTrawler – Why you should never rent a car with them

Interrent car hire and cartrawler

This is not a usual gulet cruise post. It is a post about Customer Services and customer support.

In Goolets company we are aware that the customer is the King and we admit, we also are human and we did mistakes in the past. There were situations that could sometimes be solved in a better way, but we do keep our cool 99% of the time and we do search for solutions, how to improve and make the customer the happy person in the end.

What happened to me and my wife in Sardegna, while we were going there to inspect gulets and meet new partners was something I never experienced before.

And as a person that is traveling for his entire life and has his own company since 2005, this was a nice reminder for me, that we are moving in a good direction.

Our main saying is “Life is good“.

But this post is not about bragging what we do as a company.

It is what we experienced – and the things we learned from this situation.

I love these systems….until something goes wrong. When things go bad…interesting things happen. Most of the times, you can not reach anybody. And if you can reach a live person, they are always very friendly and willing to help….but you can never amount to anything, as they are so perfectly protected with general terms and conditions, that well….there is really nothing you can do. Like fighting with an airline company. Not possible.

So in the future, I always do bookings via the live agency people, where if something goes wrong I can pick up the phone and we solve it all as a human!

When we arrived at the company to pick up our rent a car and things went bad, they were super rude, yelled at us, screamed at us and showed zero motivation to think how the situation could be solved. It was the most terrible customer service experience of my life and I never imagined some person in “travel sector” could behave like this.

Usually people working in the company are the mirror of the company values and that is why in the future also at Goolets, we will do everything in our power to make sure our salespeople, marketers, representatives, inspectors and all the stuff that goes with it is 100% in sync with our main company values.

So we had a car there, waiting for us, prepaid all good….but I did not have a credit card (just debit card) to cover the deposit…

However, my wife had it. All that we would have to do is just change the name of the reservation holder from me to my wife, do the paperwork on her name, pay the “change name fee” and take the car.

But it was not possible.

The rude woman at the desk was yelling that this is absolutely not possible and that the broker with whom we booked this should change the name. (the broker was cartrawler.com). When we called the broker, they were very nice but explained to them they can only change the name if the local agent on spot tells them they can do it.

Again the woman at the desk when crazy and yelled this is not possible, that we can go to the police, that no chance and that according to general terms and conditions, we can not do anything to them. And the Crawler said the same…just in a nicer tone.

So:

• Car was paid
• Insurance was paid
• We had the credit card
• it was all okay…

Just that it was not.

Yes. The mistake was mine.

And yes. According to general terms and conditions, after the “pick up time”, they do not need to make any changes to the reservation.

So yes. We can not touch them.

General terms and conditions win.

But they ruined our day. They took our money. They did not give us the car. They made us feel super bad. And they did everything they could, to tell us#Screw you….you are not important to us…go away…I need to go have my coffee…I do not care about the people…$$%!!!

The situation, that could be saved with a small change of name in 5 minutes (and they could easily take a couple of more euros from us as the mistake was ours, and we would gladly accept it)…they did play the “GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS GAME”…and they have now an unhappy client, bad reviews, bad taste in the mouth and we are all unhappy.

What did I learn?

Actually nothing new! To be honest, in the last 12 years we had a couple of complaints from clients that were not happy. And we always solved these complaints without ever looking at our general terms and conditions. I do not know our cancellation policy from my head. I do know all the nitty and gritty parts from gulet cruise terms, which are quite extensive…as till now – we never needed to take a look at them.

Is there a problem?

Let us try to solve the problem.

As Human-beings.

I do not believe in BUSINESS TO BUSINESS or BUSINESS TO CLIENT type of relationship.

I only believe in HUMAN to a HUMAN type of relationship.

And the last thing.

If possible, do not rent with company INTER-RENT car rentals. While we were solving our issues, there were other clients there and they were also treated rudely and without any feeling or kindness. I was amazed by how they are doing it…and it made me also feel proud of our customer services…not a perfect one without any flaws…but as a group of people, that genuinely do their best and in every situation they try to find a solution that will be the best for the client.

Thank you guys working at Goolets for trying hard. And if I catch you behave someday like this, it will be your last day.

Mitja Mirtič