Auto Rental Perception Survey

Frontline Performance Group recently partnered with Auto Rental News to conduct a groundbreaking study of the perceptions of rental car customers and the frontline staff who serve them. The results showed some rental sales perception gaps that were not anticipated. A few key highlights:

• 51% percent of customers do not have a preferred brand compared to the frontline associates who over value the customer’s brand loyalty by 9 percentage points
• Over 60% of customers using a discounted internet site to book on an Opaque website like Priceline.com or Hotwire.com have a household income of $60,000 – $100,000
• Over 50% of frontline associates surveyed believed that Opaque customers come from an income level below $60,000 per year
• 25% of eligible renters had ZERO products presented to them while only 51% of Associates monitor their sales performance on a daily basis

According to Ken Stellon, Managing Partner for Frontline, “There is a clear need to train the frontline staff and better inform the auto rental consumer. The revenue opportunities presented by these findings are staggering.” Never before has this type of information been available to rental companies.

This study was designed and performed by Frontline Performance Group over the course of the third quarter of this year. Because of Frontline’s engagement with a wide variety of rental companies, both national and international players and regional independents, they are uniquely positioned to obtain information from a true cross-section of the rental marketplace. The study surveyed frontline sales associates and rental car customers representing seven major brands in over thirty major markets across the United States, Canada, and Latin America.

“Now that the groundwork is laid we expect to conduct studies of various aspects of the auto rental sales dynamic on a global basis. We will continue to drive thought leadership in the rental car industry as we have done for the last eighteen years.” Said Ziad Khoury, CEO, and Founder of Frontline, Thursday evening. “There is no other firm in the world as intimately involved in the auto rental marketplace as we are.”

Frontline is publishing the complete findings in a white paper that will be available on their website and through Auto Rental News sometime in early November.

Frontline Performance Group specializes in creating sales cultures for any business with a frontline profit opportunity. Since its founding in 1993 FPG has served a variety of industries with a particular focus on Auto Rental. For companies who seek to maximize the value of their direct interactions with the consumer, there is no better partner than FPG which has generated over $1 billion of additional revenue for their customers.

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