Free Custom «Marketing Plan for Enterprise Holdings Company» Essay Paper

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is an internationally recognized car hire company that was founded in 1957, serving more than 6,000 neighborhoods and airport locations in Canada, United States, Germany, U.K. and Ireland. The company has currently grown to be the leading car rental brand in North America, owing to the entrepreneurial spirit of the employees, and is well recognized for its extremely low rates and high class customer service. The company is currently owned by the Taylor family of St Louis, and maintained its leadership after acquiring Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental in 2007 to form Enterprise Holdings, which is currently the largest car rental service provider in the world with annual revenue of $ 12.6 billion and over 68000 employees, and with consolidated market to include Caribbean, Asia and Latin America.

The Service Model, Promotion and education

Rental of cars system runs on supply and demand model where more cars lead to lower rates. Customer service department, website attendants and the head office management deal with the customers directly. This process may start from the website attendants to customer service team that leads the customer to the billing department. After the service, head office communicates with the customer to assess the level of satisfaction.

Enterprise holdings has different employee specialties, ranging from those directly in touch with the customers, to others like the  car preparation team and mechanics, who do not deal directly with customers, but play an important role in the overall service. They clean the cars after every use and make sure they are fueled. Mechanics also ensure that the cars are serviced and made ready for the next client. The core business of Enterprise Holdings is car and commercial truck renting service that serves Northern America, Asia, Mexico, Caribbean and Latin America.

Positioning of service relative to competitors

Enterprise Holdings strength that gives it competitive advantage is the well trained work force that assists customers before they even visit the office. This positive relationship starts with website interaction and telephone conversations whenever customers want to make enquiries, by ensuring that the best customer experience is created. The company also offers free pick-up and drop-off services to customers instead of taxis, offer ARMS service which deal with customers rescue during an accident, as well as coordinating with the insurance company to take care of all the expenses including the cost of renting a new car during the emergency time.  They also check with the car body-shop to assess the amount of repairs. Equally, all customers are contacted by the head office, to answer a few enterprise quality service index survey questions, to help assess their level of satisfaction, and in case a customer drops off after office hours, they are called the following day to confirm if all was well.  These extra services make enterprise holdings to be outstanding.

Enterprise holdings run weekend special promotions that offer lower rates of renting and the discounted monthly and weekly rental rates. This makes the company’s pricing be cheaper and therefore preferred by many customers. The company also offers different daily rates to different insurance and corporate companies who have long term arrangements. Enterprise holdings target all customers from all segments, but with special attention to the corporate customers who offer long term regular markets and receive services at much cheaper costs.

The company’s employees are empowered to handle customer problems themselves. However, a follow up is made after every transaction to assess the level of satisfaction and to identify the improvements to be made next time. In case the customer is not satisfied, an employee has multiple services to offer such as a discounted rental, offer a free upgrade, discounted fuel price and sometimes a free rental to entice the customer. The offer of free pick-up services, discounted rentals, discounted fuels and feedback mechanisms from the customers are strategies used to build customer loyalty, increase productivity and ensure recovery of unhappy customers. Customers are also called from head office to convince them to try the service again even for free. The strategy used to improve service quality and productivity, is through listening to customer feedback. Employees are allowed to give their inputs in the yearly survey and in case the set quotas are not met, more training is offered to equip the staff with more skills through the management trainee program.

Enterprise Holdings have winter tires on almost all cars.  Customers are encouraged to ask for winter tires for their cars in case they are missing, owing to the fact that they are not mandatory in some provinces. If a customer returns a car later than two hours, they are automatically charged for an extra day, while dropping off cars in other locations is allowed but at a fee of $150 above the daily rental fee. US travel is allowed, with only Maine, Mass, Vermont and New Hampshire regions not permitted to leave their cars in the United States.

Conclusion

Enterprise Holdings is the leading car renting company in the world in terms of revenue and serves the United States, Mexico, Latin America, Caribbean and Asia markets at cheaper prices. It also offers supplementary services that include; fleet management, commercial truck renting, car sales and Vanpool program. Customer retention and satisfaction is key to their business.