I just got back from a god awful day at work using PhillyCarShare.

On paper, I'd say it's a good deal if you're looking to rent for less than 3 hours, PLUS are in a leisurely mood. That's basically your everyday city dweller who doesn't need a car but for the weekend for an hour or so.

It's a bit different for me, since I had an out of town meeting and my car is in the shop. I use the car share service really as a back up.

I had a meeting at Reading, PA, at 1:30pm today. It takes an hour or so to get there from Philadelphia. So I gave myself extra time, and reserved the car for a 11:45am pick up figuring traffic with odds and ends. I made the reservation ahead of time (3 weeks ago) and found the closest car to my location with completely open schedule. Great! right?

In retrospect, I should have been more cautious when I got a last minute phone call at 6pm the day before my reservation from PhillyCarShare. The representative told me on the phone that the car I reserved is scheduled for service. And unfortunately, the second car in the same lot is reserved, so she needs to change my reservation to another location. After some negotiations, I decided on the Wannamaker building location's Toyota Prius with the same time slot.

This morning, I got there 5 mins early, the Toyota was no where in sight. It was supposed in a preassigned spot along with a second car. Both cars were missing. So I walked around the parking lot for about 10 mins, talked to the attendant and found that there was only one car in the lot and it's not the Prius. The attendant told me that the Prius left the building about an hour ago. Being in the basement, I had no reception on my cell phone, so I made my way to the garage entrance, found a spot with reception, and called their emergency line. I told the representative the situation and the answer I got was that the Pirus is supposed to be there.....really, it's supposed to be there......but it's not!! The representative was trying to be courteous and took time to explain in detail HOW the Pirus is supposed to be there. By now, I'm 10 mins late. Time is of the essence, and the representative continues on in a long winded way to explain to me that it's supposed to be there.

I was disappointed at this point and told the representative that something should now be done instead of telling me that the car is supposed to be there. She finally decided to call the person who had the Pirus before and told me a more precise location where the Pirus was parked. I said, alright, despite the attendant telling me that the car is gone, I thought, well, no one is perfect, I might have missed it. Let's check again. Nope, 5 mins of torments, I was still staring at an empty spot with no Pirus. I was frantic at this point. It's 12:10pm. Even without traffic, I'd be tight to make my appointment. I ran back to the one spot where I got reception, called again. I got another representative who has no idea what's going on. We repeat the same conversation about how the Pirus is not there even though it's theoretically there.


Alright....I'm just boiling now. But still trying to be logical, I thought to myself, why not just switch my reservation to the other car, a matrix, which is there. Obviously, someone made a mistake and took the wrong car.
The Matrix and the Pirus are about the same size/doors/seating/even the same car maker, so it's not surprising that someone made a mistake and it really shouldn't be a problem to switch the two reservations. After all, I just got switched last night to this lot. It's not like PhillyCarShare is a giant bureaucracy who is slow to change. Making things happen seems to be what I heard of the wonderful company.

The representative said unsympathetically, "ah, I'm not comfortable doing that because there's someone who reserved the Matrix in the afternoon overlapping your schedule." She then offers: "why don't you take a taxi to go to our 8th and Market location for another car? We'll reimburse you for the ride."

I thought to myself, by the time I get to 8th and Market, I'd be in deep sh*t! My appointment was in fact in court, so knowing our Pennsylvania court system who are pitiless to those who are late, I said no. By this time, I'd rather run to the nearby car rental place and try my luck with whatever they've got. And I don't believe in reimbursement. There's no way, I'm going to pay up front for someone else's mistake. Call me stingy, call me a bitch, that's just not going to happen.

Heart beat raising, blood rushing to my head, I was about to lose it on the rep.

Thank GOD!! Finally, someone in the back of the office overheard our conversation and gave the OK to switch. (I'm guessing it was the first rep I talked with who gave the OK) I finally got in the car, get acquainted, and got out of the garage at 12:25pm.......I got to Reading 5 mins late. Thank god they just started swearing in, and I avoided a humiliating moment in court with inmates staring down my back and damage my relations with my company.

For such a progressive company, the representatives are sure BAD on their feet.

Here's my comments to PhillyCarShare:

First on customer service: I, as the angry client, is really looking for resolution and am not looking to hear what was SUPPOSE to be. Someone should be the problem solving by the second time the same conversation happens. (And note that I didn't get angry until the second time someone told me that I'm wrong for the cynical little ones out there who might be reading this. I don't want to come off as an unreasonable person who blows up the first sign when things don't go my way.) But if a customer tried and tried again to explain to you that something is wrong. You better start drumming up some solutions that can save your company's face, and create some immediate solutions.

Second, when your customer is explaining that it's really important for them to get to their appointment on time, everything should be focused on speed and not spending countless minutes explaining how the system works. I appreciate the explanation, but I don't work for your company, and I am paying you money for the time we're on the phone, meanwhile it's absolutely a waste of my time to be talking to hear some company standard schpill.

To the company's credit, someone did call me back at the end of the day. However, the rep was not calling to address the reservation's fallouts, but because I was a new customer, I got a personal phone call to make sure things went well.

I took the opportunity to tell the rep the displeasures of my reservation (everything written here), she apologized profusely. Explaining that they've been having problem with the lot's space assignment. And that she was sorry my first impression with the company had been tinted by not one, two but three impositions!

Which brings me to the final point:

if it's a parking lot you've been having problems with in space assignment, your company should really give us, the customers, a heads up. Tell me to get there even earlier to do the easter egg hunt. Even if I'm not able to do that, it'd be my own responsibility and I couldn't blame you for it. At least in the mean time while your company can't solve the problem, I can at least allow myself some time to do whatever it takes to get the car and complete my reservation. The problem will NOT simply go away just because you've PR-ed with one, two or even a dozen customers. Be active and solve the problem ahead of time.



I've heard great things about the PhillyCarShare from my friends and that's why I thought I'd try to rent from them instead of letting a traditional car rental company get my business. But just from this first experience, I will advise those of you out there to count on the company to be unreliable. If there's an important meeting, job interview, or whatever us newbies in the cities are trying to do to get ahead with our career, I'd either add another hour of what you figure you need, or go with a more reliable fleet of car rental companies.