Thank you for your comment and feedback.

We offer 5 automatic groups in our range, ranging from a Peugeot 308 sized automatic through to a Mercedes E class. We do not have a very small automatic, since cars of this type cost us almost the same as a medium sized automatic car such as the Peugeot 308. Unfortunately in the UK the cost of automatic cars is significantly higher than manual ones as the demand for automatics is much lower than in other markets such as North America.

Whilst our medium sized automatic cars aren’t the cheapest option for rental in the UK, we try to price them competitively and hope to be able to help you next time you visit.

Nick

When will Avis start to have small automatic cars available – then I will come back in UK
Douglas

I am disappointed that we did not deliver the service you expect from Avis. Would you be able to email me at comments@avis.co.uk with further details (and rental agreement numbers, if possible) and we’ll take a look into this for you.

Stephen

Rob

Rob

Another example – When you claim missing clubcard points you get an automated response (Thank You for claiming your missing miles/points with Avis online.
An e-mail will be sent to you confirming your details and the status of
your missing miles/points within 72 hours.
The rental agreement number xxxxxxxx is the Reference number for your
claim.) However im still waiting for a reply 2 months on

Take this for example. Imagine we have 300 diesel cars in a particular category on our fleet that is spread across 120 locations. A diesel booking comes in 4 months in advance to be picked up at Norwich Airport. Having booked so far in advance this customer is clearly going to expect a diesel car. On the week this rental is due to go out a customer rents the diesel but it is a one way rental. It is a customer who has turned up unexpectedly and, for contractual obligations, we are not allowed to turn it down. Norwich airport ends up with no diesel cars. To source another one the rental office would have to travel to either Peterborough or Ipswich which is a 160 mile round trip. Given that this would take 2 of our staff to do this then this would be costly both in the travel expenses and the staff time out as well as the impact on customer satisfaction at the potentially understaffed rental office in Norwich (unless we bring in extra staff which is more cost). Scale this example across the country and this would end up adding significantly more cost to the business hindering our ability to offer a competitive price to our customers. Either that or we have lots of angry customers because we couldn’t get them the diesel they had booked!

I completely agree that it would be great to offer petrol and diesel choice and I promise we are looking into it. However, we need to make sure that if we do offer this then we have the ability to meet our promises. For now, we make no promises to our customers that we are able to guarantee a petrol or diesel (unless you book one of the VWs or Audis on Select Series which are all diesels). However, our staff will try to give you one if there is one available if you were to request this at the rental counter.

I really appreciate this kind of feedback so please, please keep it coming as these comments genuinely influence how we look to develop our products and service.

Rob

Thanks for your feedback, we will look into how we can make that available.

Just to give you some explaination and insights: It is very difficult for operational reasons to guarantee a car by type of fuel today, except on some very specific models like Audis and Mercedes. It’s really because of the number of petrol v diesel in each car category.

Let us know if there are others things that you’d like Avis to improve and make available. I can’t promise we’ll do everything only that we’ll look into every single question or suggestion that we get.

This blog is there so these discussions can take place and ideas can be exchanged!