You just can’t make this stuff up:
I walked into the Avis Rental Car Office at Boston’s Logan Airport yesterday. The customer service rep very efficiently handled my reservation and asked me if I’d like to get a GPS for the car. I told her no, but I would like a map.
“We no longer do maps,” she said.
“What? You don’t offer maps? Is that because you want people to rent GPS systems instead?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she said, quite seriously. “We’re trying to save money, so we stopped printing maps. The economy is so bad, we’re laying off a lot of people. We’re all going to lose our jobs soon!”
Saving money by not printing maps? How sad that an industry leader like Avis has stooped this low. As I got in the car, I wondered if they’d also checked the air in the tires lately, or changed the oil and, when I had to stop suddenly, how recently they’d tested the brakes.
Looking around the rental car office, at first glance I noticed at least 4-5 different printed pieces that could have been eliminated to save money, but instead Avis chose to eliminate maps.This is not a way to make customers feel warm and fuzzy and secure when renting a car in New England in winter. When I hit a traffic jam on the Mass Pike a half hour later, I thought how nice it would have been to have a local map to find an alternative route.
It’s a shame that Avis doesn’t do maps anymore. It looks like Trying Harder is out of vogue these days.
