An open letter

[spot]

An open letter to a busy man without an email address...



Andrew C Taylor

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK Limited

Enterprise House

Delta Way

Egham

Surrey TW20 8Rx



Dear Andy,

I'd like to thank your company for a startling afternoon.

Dropping into your Aylesbury branch on Stokes Road, I asked for a quotation. I explained my need for an automatic to pick up a friend from Gatwick Airport at 9.30am next Saturday (a distance of seventy miles from here), that small was fine, I'd like a waiver on damage and my license was current and clean. Your trainee manager efficiently entered the details to your central quotation system, flagged it for "the cheap weekend rate" and announced the price to be one hundred and thirty seven pounds thirty pence. With gas (gas isn't included, apparently) I'd say that takes me to £150, which is so close to three hundred cast-iron greenbacks that I asked him to check, at least, that the cheap rate was selected right. It was. I pointed to the dot-matrix printer and asked for a hard copy quote to take with me but he declined, giving me instead his business card with the amount written in by hand.

Walking across to the local cab company I asked for a competitive quotation from the dispatcher, showing him the card. Prompted either by indignation or helpless laughter - both were visible on his face - he said he'd book me a car there and back for £80 complete with a fully-trained chauffeur whose whimsical anecdotes regarding the rich and the famous for whom he'd driven would entertain me throughout the entire trip. Inspired, and banging his fist to the desk, the dispatcher declared that a proper peaked cap and jacket would be thrown in for no additional cost; for an extra £40 the company would get the Rolls Royce out of the yard to make a day of it. He'd even get his son to "buff it up the night before so it gleams", an aspect of British vernacular which had previously passed me by but which I shall treasure henceforth. For the entire three hundred bucks, he announced in righteous awe, I could buy a junior partnership in his firm, take over the despatch desk and have the ride to Gatwick thrown in as a perk.

British Rail, meanwhile, has quoted me £44 for the round trip for two adults. That's for both of us, not just for one.

Enterprise ranks 21st worldwide on The Largest Private Companies list? It must be a profitable business.

Yours sincerely,

Spot.