At Orbis we often need to travel for meetings or project work and like many companies we fill this need by renting vehicles. We have been primarily working with one "enterprising" company and the staff at the individual offices have been very helpful - they are accommodating, flexible, and generally pleasant.
But we've had less success working with the corporate side of the company. The process of establishing our company account has been uneven at best. At times we've received inconsistent answers to questions, but at other times it's difficult to get any response at all.
I recently reached out to the corporate representative for our area to address some of these issues. After multiple messages she finally responded - we had a pleasant phone call during which she agreed to follow up with some information about our account.
A week passed, but no response. So I followed up and the representative claimed she thought she had emailed the information (if she did, I never received it), but promised to resend it (still nothing).
On our call she claimed that she was happy to have our business, but she's doing practically everything she can to lose it. To be frank, I would have already moved on, but this company has the only rental cars available where some of our staff are located. Nevertheless, we're considering all other options.
Frontline employees are often the face of customer service and can receive the bulk of attention when things go wrong between a company and those it serves. But if the corporate management isn't aligned with the frontline staff, it can severely damage the customer relationship, despite the staff's best efforts.
Ask yourself - as a business leader - are you treating your customers how you would like your employees to? Are your habits aligned with your corporate values? If not, you're doing more damage to your company than you know.
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