Comments

They were 80 years old?
If the job makes them happy and they enjoy it
well good for them I guess.
At what age do people normally retire in USA?
We hear so much propaganda about "the working poor in USA" here in Sweden otherwise.
"Working poor" means people living on minimum-wage and they usually need 2 or 3 jobs at the same time in order to survive.
I am reading your book "Re-imagine" at the moment. It is very interesting stuff!
Best regards
Marcus
Sweden

Posted by Marcus Andersson at March 29, 2006 10:32 AM

Great story - my Academnic supervisor Professor George Giarchi is 76 going on 18 and has more energy than me. Why is it such a surprise when we find people of this age with ener?gy

Posted by Trevor at March 29, 2006 10:49 AM

Hertz is just a very good company in my opinion. On a recent trip my daughter became ill in the back seat and did what kids do at times.

Hertz got us a new car (immediately), did not charge us for the change and did it all in a very professional manner.

Now, when I travel for business I now use Hertz every time.

Posted by Chris at March 29, 2006 11:35 AM

I haven't taken the time to let Hertz know, but they have the opposite problem at LaGuardia.

Save one, all the Hertz employees are terrific in making the process go smooth. It's clear they understand it's not about them, but about getting you on your way.

BUT, the last person you interact with is the gate check where they want to see your agreement and driver's license. These guys NEVER say hello. In fact, they almost never say anything. They stick out their hand without comment. They don't say anything when returning your documents. No "thanks", "have a good day", "have a good trip". It's as if you are botehring them.

The only hint at the problem is they are often dressed in dirty coveralls as if they have been prepping cars and this is the other duty assigned to them. They probably just need 15 minutes of training:
1. your are Hertz
2. our customers are almost always hurried to either get to work or get to a flight
3. saying hello & thanks goes a million miles
4. your are "on stage" when dealing with customers
5. smile

It is the last impression of the Hertz experience at LaGuardia and it is ALWAYS bad.

Posted by Jeff at March 29, 2006 11:45 AM

Hi Tom,

Pancho Villa, here. Since you have been riffing on Experience, I have been a student, watching very closely for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

At my Starbucks, every employee knows my name, and the new ones always ask. They always know when I lay off the double espressos and ask whether or not I need one (mostly I do need one, but I am trying to cut back a little). They also never fail to make sure that I buy their Black Apron coffee (which helps troubled regions of the world). Nice experience.

Last week at the Beverly Hilton (where you would expect a good experience), the valets put a bottle of water in my car every time I took it out of parking. I left with 8 bottles of water on my backseat, but still, not bad.

Contrast that with the clothing retailer I visted over the weekend to buy my niece a present. There were 20 people in line and one teller. The manager was counting the drawers, finished, and went back out on the floor, leaving us all still in line. No apology, no help, no good experience.

The one thing I have noticed is that the experience is completely free! Tough cultural change, sure, but how much does it cost to say, "Hi, I'm knew here and I notice you come in every day. My name is Julie, what's yours?" (actual Starbucks experience this week)

Posted by S. Anthony Iannarino at March 29, 2006 12:19 PM

Here in the UK in the late 1980s, B&Q (a DIY chain, if you're not aware) started hiring "mature" staff and it was a huge success.

They tried it in one store, and they found that all the assumptions were WRONG. The store had higher than normal profitability, low absenteeism, and low turnover.

Age isn't the issue. A lot of "seat warmers" always were that way. Unlike my programming guru who recently retired, and for 40 years never stopped looking forward and working hard at what could be done better.

Posted by Tim Almond at March 29, 2006 12:28 PM

Seems seniors win the day - accurate & friendly.

Too often the youngest are such that if you tell them that "... up to 50% of iPOD users register hearing loss - they say - dude, I'll be concerned when it's, like, half ...".

Posted by Sean at March 29, 2006 12:41 PM

Tom

I have been reading and hearing your messages since the early 1980... The greatest thing about you is that you move with the times... Accepting that "experience" is the equal or better than talent is fast becoming a contemporary movement - thank God! Technologies now allow people, with experience, so many more opportunities today than in the recent past... In my own case I am putting down my "experience" in thinking in a blog... I have just started my Clear Space Thinking blogspot - this space is what I like to call "a thinking person's gym"... A space with no rules.... A space where people can come and test their thinking powers and capabilities... You can catch my blog at:

http://richard-lipscombe.tripod.com/clear_space_thinking/index.blog

Keep on being relevant Tom!

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 29, 2006 3:53 PM

Great stuff Sean - love that - hilarious :-)

Forgive me for widening this a little to talk about ageism…..I well remember here in UK when online repeat prescriptions for medicines were first made available (1990’s) in the NHS, the greatest uptake of this new ‘high tech’ service was by people over 65 years of age. And that was after appropriate statistical validity and adjustment for the fact that older people use more medicines. Incorrect assumptions were made that old people 'don’t get' the new technology - Garbage! Just like ‘some’ young people ‘some’ older folks struggle with IT. We all know that many people over 65 use the web and the new technology frequently. As always, the danger of generalisation threatens to distort the facts.

Posted by Trevor at March 29, 2006 4:16 PM

It takes experience to give customers the best possible experience. It takes the experience of having received piss-poor service to motivate delivering WOW service ourselves. It takes the experience of having received WOW service to know what experiences you can offer and the heights others can acheive. It is from the experience of delivering outstanding service, giving a needed smile, offering just what is needed before it is asked for, that ones becomes aware of the difference it can make in your customers' experience.

Posted by Kirk at March 29, 2006 4:50 PM

I'm a very loyal Hertz customer. As an ex-hotel exec, I remember being humbled when I saw research that showed that car rental customers are more brand loyal that hotel customers. With the car rental companies all renting the same Tauruses, you'd figure that hotel companies could create something more unique.

But what happened is that the car rental companies, led by Hertz, had to get beyond the fallacy that slight differences in physical products can be sustainable. They focused on the intangibles that really make a difference to people.

One January dad I showed up in Kansas City when the temparature was 10 below. My Hertz car was warmed up a toasty inside. One July day in Phoenix at 110 degress my car was waiting with the air conditioning already on. In both cases the shuttle bus driver had asked my name when I got on the bus at the terminal, and the information actually got relayed to another person. Simple, effective, and ignored by most companies.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at March 30, 2006 9:46 AM

I showed up at the Hertz return lot at 7:00 a.m. at the Louisville airport once and the Hertz check-in attendant was sound asleep. I had to wake her up by banging on the window of her van! In all other aspects, however, Hertz outshines their rivals.

Posted by Mike at March 30, 2006 9:55 AM

Hertz seems to be 1st rate quite consistently.

Enterprise though in Albuquerque let me try 3 different cars mid-week over 4 days since I wanted to test drive for a new purchase decision.

Posted by Sean at March 30, 2006 11:43 AM

Hurrah for Hertz!
I rented a car off of them in 1990 in Orlando and had it for a week rate. My aunt died in Ohio 3 days into our vacation. We took the car back and Hertz told us we would now have to pay the daily rate of $79 a day for returning the car early. We had the weekly rate at a much cheaper rate. So I paid $200+ for three days instead of the $59 for a week that I had reserved. I don't travel as much as Tom P. but my wife and I travel quite a bit. We will never ever use Hertz again for their compassion for us in the loss of muy aunt.

Posted by SCOTT at March 30, 2006 2:11 PM