Hertz, yeah! And other concerns...

published: Wed, 3-Oct-2007   |   updated: Mon, 22-Oct-2007

After my blog post on our experiences with renting an Audi A3 from Hertz in England recently, I had a very nice email from a Customer Relations lady at Hertz here in the States (in Oklahoma City, as it happens) apologizing for the problems, and assuring me that our difficulties should certainly not have happened.

She gave me a refund for the fuel that we hadn't received and also a certificate towards our next rental from Hertz.

Everything — apologies, refund, and certificate — were gratefully accepted and obviously I thanked them. I reiterated in my reply that, apart from the issues I described, we really enjoyed the car (and how could I not enjoy it?).

All this does however gives me a queasy feeling. This is now the second time it's happened: I've complained about something on the blog here, first with Dell, then with Hertz, and as a result I've been contacted by the customer relations people to get things sorted out (here's Dell's). And sorted out they've been both times, most satisfactorily. I should be patting myself on the back, right?

Well, no, surely there's an ethical issue here, I think. Both times I should have contacted the companies concerned privately first and voiced my concerns, and let them settle the issue without them being under the spotlight. I have this vague feeling of almost blackmailing them somehow — "Guys, I have a blog and I shall shame you publicly! Roar!" — to get them to satisfy my concerns.

The other issue is this: say I complain about some company like United Airlines (no, really, I love 'em and I'm at the Premier Executive level, but, boy, they can irritate the shit out of me sometimes). Who's to say that the incident I'm complaining about really happened? Maybe it didn't, but I'm making it up like a complete fraud just to see what I can make from the bad publicity.

I remember, for example, years ago, I was going to Paris from Denver via Washington Dulles on United. Due to the weather, a faulty plane, or something, the flight from Denver was delayed and I only got to Washington at the exact time the Paris flight took off. It was to the second almost. So I had to stay overnight near Dulles and catch the same flight to Paris the next day. Donna went apeshit (the trip was a special present for me to see the Pet Shop Boys in concert there) and was ready to raise hell with United about it all. But, me, I recognized that it wasn't their fault, c'est la vie, and urged her to drop it all. This was Before The Blog, though. Would I have acted differently now? I hope not.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive about it all, but nevertheless, I'll try it the other way round the next time and let you know how it goes. Either way, if I recommend a company here on my blog and I've received some token from them (albeit the token being money or goods or services), I will reveal all. I think not doing so is a worse ethical breach than what I'm discussing in this post.

Interestingly though, apposite to this topic, I noticed the other day that my site is spidered every now and then by what may be termed "brand name" or "online reputation" robots. These are robots that are sent out by companies like Brand Impressions, BD Brand Protect, to monitor what people are saying about their clients. I'm flattered, although I dare say they're spidering me not necessarily for the good things I may be saying but the bad things. After all, these companies exist to protect the online reputation of their clients. I wonder how widespread this spidering is, though. Do they spider blog sites like Blogger or MySpace? Or just sites from non-commercial-blogging domains, so that they target the individual rather than the gestalt? Dunno.