11 ms·

I feel like this too, but only when other people are at the counter. When I’m at the counter the whole thing never seems to take more than a few minutes. It’s

I feel like this too, but only when other people are at the counter. When I’m at the counter the whole thing never seems to take more than a few minutes. It’s always quick, and smooth, and I’m out of there, seemingly, in no time at all. I desperately want to know what other people are saying or doing at the rental car counter.

Ontonator 5y ago
The longer someone is at the counter, the more likely you are to see them. You’re biased towards seeing the relatively few people who take half an hour.
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  But those are also the people who ruin it for everyone. Why not heavily optimize for the 90% good case via full automation and discourage time intensive behavior. I'm thinking either only taking online reservations or doing a 30% surcharge for walk-ins. The happy case should be that I book online, I get a parking spot location where the car is and a QR code I show on exit. Hertz Gold at SFO is like 80% there, yet the normal case remains having to walk to a desk. It seems in their interest to discourage going to the desk as much as possible.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    Would be interesting if they offered a subscription service and/or loyalty tier that gives you "real" reservations. Call it "$BRAND Car Guarantee." That way, you know that the customers are committing to actually get their cars, and you can make a term of service that you don't miss N cars per T time (this would be displayed prominently - call it something friendly like "house rules"). Boom, everyone's happy. Your repeat customers are more likely to stay that way, and people will hear about this and _become_ repeat customers because that's what it incentivizes. You can keep prices cheap by overbooking your non-loyalty cars like you already do.
  - llampx 5y ago
    How would they upsell you on insurance and extras if you didn't have any interactions with a sales agent? Honest question.
- zhte415 5y ago
  I'm reminded of this train/bus is taking ages to come. If one comes, say, every 15 minutes, that's an average waiting time of 7.5 minutes (and there's a +/- of around a minute for whether the 'time' is arrival, doors opening, closing, departure, depending on one's perspective of which 'time' is important to them). If one's already there, or comes within 1-2 minutes, that's perceptively close to time = 0, which pushes out perceived average waiting time to 8-9 minutes with times approaching or exceeding average waiting time having a disproportionately negative perception (your total journey time/connection impact, expectation of unannounced cancellation, etc, increasing). Nifty modern stuff like indicator boards work to re-align these perceptions. Passage of time is also quite non-linear - back to the ATM queue. When using the ATM I'm engaged in a series of short-term tasks, just as writing a comment on HN when sitting on the subway causes stations to pass 'faster'. And back to the ATM - I'm sure there's someone somewhere in a retail banking team that measures average interaction with ATM timings. Do they read HN or would like to comment?
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    My favorite chestnut regarding this is the one that occurred at Houston Intercontinental: https://archive.ph/Z3gjx https://archive.ph/Z3gjx > SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted. > Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags. > So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.
    - tragictrash 5y ago
      Love this solution. Make it tougher overall but the perceived impact is less. Ooof.
- daoismyname 5y ago
  That's not the interesting part though. The interesting part is WHY for some people it takes so long that everybody else has to wait. Imagine being on a high speed train and having to travel at the speed of the slowest train in front or if e-mail were sent using snail mail. It obviously happens frequently enough that virtually everyone who ever rented a car - even only that one time - noticed it, so why they do not optimize for that? I used to rent cars very often and I had to wait every single time I went there, it's not really a bias, it's a certainty. Lately there have been some improvements on that front and a couple of the major rental companies made it almost painless if you are a regular customer, but it's still a lottery most of the times.
mitigating 5y ago
They probably didn't rent online
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  Maybe adding a surcharge for walk-ins or having a separate line for them seems like the way to go. Or maybe don't allow them at all and lay off the staff saved.
lowercased 5y ago
Same thing at drive up ATMs. it feels like people are applying for a mortgage or opening retirement accounts when I'm behind them waiting. And... I know it's an exaggeration, but often I will time the person or people in front of me. Someone taking up to 1 minute - I don't generally mind (unless theres 3 people ahead of me). However, I've often sat behind someone who takes 3-4 minutes, and I can not figure out what the hell they're doing. That said, I think I've only used an ATM 3x in the past year, so this may mostly be a thing of the past now.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  I have been, in the past, that annoying person taking up lots of time at the ATM. Here's what I was doing: Depositing lots of checks (up to a dozen at once), with an ATM that in theory supported depositing a whole stack at once but in practice spat them back most of the time if you put in more than one. Oh, and you have to key in the value of each check, and navigate menu options after each individual check deposit. I was very damn efficient considering how much I was doing, but it still took a decent amount of time.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
    Isn't it easier to just mail checks to the bank? USPS is among a few things that still work in this country.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    As a non-American, the very idea of having to drive somewhere to physically deposit pieces of paper to transfer money around sounds absurd to the point of hilarity.
    - iamtedd 5y ago
      I bought my current car second-hand from a dealer. The best interest rate I could get by far was the line-of-credit loan I already had for my house. I bought the car on my credit card and eventually paid for it with the loan. Automatically done by the bank, of course. Even handling cash feels slightly old-fashioned to me.
llampx 5y ago
Seriously, I have seen this phenomenon at government offices as well. Every other appointment seems to take ages, and mine takes a fraction of the time, no matter the outcome.
e_proxus 5y ago
The key is preparation. It’s the same for me at hotel check-ins. I’m always prepared, I have all my info available in my mobile or on paper, I’ve already thought about the trip several times before and on the way. Some people seem utterly unprepared. They either don’t have their info at all, or have to login to their web mail, or find some printed paper at the bottom of their enormous suitcase. And then they tend to have tons of questions. I check out the facilities beforehand online so I know what to expect and how to use them.
- cpcallen 5y ago
  I recently rented a car for the first time, with a co-driver. The rental was paid in advance online (which seemed to be the norm here in the UK) and I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward and quick to collect the car. Instead, after waiting about 15 minutes for the single person ahead of us in line to be processed, we were met with a series of demands for various sorts of verification and documentation that has not been mentioned in the online checkout process. This included having to use a .gov.uk website to get a code that would allow the company to validate our driving licences, and provide a proof of address (despite our addresses being printed on our government-issued, just-verified-authentic driver's licences.) The whole process took nearly half an hour just at the desk. I am glad that there was no one waiting in line behind us most of that time. I've now joined ZipCar and will hopefully never have to deal with a traditional car hire company again.
  - avianlyric 5y ago
    Car rental in the U.K. as a U.K. resident is more complicated than car rental as a non-U.K. resident. Not 100% sure why, but it seems that U.K. residents are required to basically do full IDV (which requires two proofs of address) and prove they have no points in their licence. None of this applies to non-U.K. residents, which probably make up the majority of customers, so the rental website usually put all these details in the fine print. Also while your looking at Zipcar (which is great) also take a peek at Virtuo. Only place I’ve ever enjoyed renting a car from.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
sjg007 5y ago
There's always someone trying to get a discount or unhappy with their car or something. This is why you join the rewards program, preregister and do the walk out program where everything is all preset and ready to go.
spurgu 5y ago
In Europe the companies I've dealt with try to confuse you into buying various insurances, where you were under the impression that you had already paid for it when doing the online booking. Figuring out what the actual situation is takes time. Tip: Do your research and read the fine print online before you leave for your trip.
bennysomething 5y ago
Standing at the counter is June at as bad, I'm still wondering wtf the guy is looking at on his screen

Ontonator 5y ago

The longer someone is at the counter, the more likely you are to see them. You’re biased towards seeing the relatively few people who take half an hour.

ajmurmann 5y ago
But those are also the people who ruin it for everyone. Why not heavily optimize for the 90% good case via full automation and discourage time intensive behavior. I'm thinking either only taking online reservations or doing a 30% surcharge for walk-ins. The happy case should be that I book online, I get a parking spot location where the car is and a QR code I show on exit. Hertz Gold at SFO is like 80% there, yet the normal case remains having to walk to a desk. It seems in their interest to discourage going to the desk as much as possible.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  Would be interesting if they offered a subscription service and/or loyalty tier that gives you "real" reservations. Call it "$BRAND Car Guarantee." That way, you know that the customers are committing to actually get their cars, and you can make a term of service that you don't miss N cars per T time (this would be displayed prominently - call it something friendly like "house rules"). Boom, everyone's happy. Your repeat customers are more likely to stay that way, and people will hear about this and _become_ repeat customers because that's what it incentivizes. You can keep prices cheap by overbooking your non-loyalty cars like you already do.
- llampx 5y ago
  How would they upsell you on insurance and extras if you didn't have any interactions with a sales agent? Honest question.
zhte415 5y ago
I'm reminded of this train/bus is taking ages to come. If one comes, say, every 15 minutes, that's an average waiting time of 7.5 minutes (and there's a +/- of around a minute for whether the 'time' is arrival, doors opening, closing, departure, depending on one's perspective of which 'time' is important to them). If one's already there, or comes within 1-2 minutes, that's perceptively close to time = 0, which pushes out perceived average waiting time to 8-9 minutes with times approaching or exceeding average waiting time having a disproportionately negative perception (your total journey time/connection impact, expectation of unannounced cancellation, etc, increasing). Nifty modern stuff like indicator boards work to re-align these perceptions. Passage of time is also quite non-linear - back to the ATM queue. When using the ATM I'm engaged in a series of short-term tasks, just as writing a comment on HN when sitting on the subway causes stations to pass 'faster'. And back to the ATM - I'm sure there's someone somewhere in a retail banking team that measures average interaction with ATM timings. Do they read HN or would like to comment?
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  My favorite chestnut regarding this is the one that occurred at Houston Intercontinental: https://archive.ph/Z3gjx https://archive.ph/Z3gjx > SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted. > Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags. > So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.
  - tragictrash 5y ago
    Love this solution. Make it tougher overall but the perceived impact is less. Ooof.
daoismyname 5y ago
That's not the interesting part though. The interesting part is WHY for some people it takes so long that everybody else has to wait. Imagine being on a high speed train and having to travel at the speed of the slowest train in front or if e-mail were sent using snail mail. It obviously happens frequently enough that virtually everyone who ever rented a car - even only that one time - noticed it, so why they do not optimize for that? I used to rent cars very often and I had to wait every single time I went there, it's not really a bias, it's a certainty. Lately there have been some improvements on that front and a couple of the major rental companies made it almost painless if you are a regular customer, but it's still a lottery most of the times.

mitigating 5y ago

They probably didn't rent online

ajmurmann 5y ago
Maybe adding a surcharge for walk-ins or having a separate line for them seems like the way to go. Or maybe don't allow them at all and lay off the staff saved.

lowercased 5y ago

Same thing at drive up ATMs. it feels like people are applying for a mortgage or opening retirement accounts when I'm behind them waiting. And... I know it's an exaggeration, but often I will time the person or people in front of me. Someone taking up to 1 minute - I don't generally mind (unless theres 3 people ahead of me). However, I've often sat behind someone who takes 3-4 minutes, and I can not figure out what the hell they're doing. That said, I think I've only used an ATM 3x in the past year, so this may mostly be a thing of the past now.

CydeWeys 5y ago
I have been, in the past, that annoying person taking up lots of time at the ATM. Here's what I was doing: Depositing lots of checks (up to a dozen at once), with an ATM that in theory supported depositing a whole stack at once but in practice spat them back most of the time if you put in more than one. Oh, and you have to key in the value of each check, and navigate menu options after each individual check deposit. I was very damn efficient considering how much I was doing, but it still took a decent amount of time.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  Isn't it easier to just mail checks to the bank? USPS is among a few things that still work in this country.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  As a non-American, the very idea of having to drive somewhere to physically deposit pieces of paper to transfer money around sounds absurd to the point of hilarity.
  - iamtedd 5y ago
    I bought my current car second-hand from a dealer. The best interest rate I could get by far was the line-of-credit loan I already had for my house. I bought the car on my credit card and eventually paid for it with the loan. Automatically done by the bank, of course. Even handling cash feels slightly old-fashioned to me.

llampx 5y ago

Seriously, I have seen this phenomenon at government offices as well. Every other appointment seems to take ages, and mine takes a fraction of the time, no matter the outcome.

e_proxus 5y ago

The key is preparation. It’s the same for me at hotel check-ins. I’m always prepared, I have all my info available in my mobile or on paper, I’ve already thought about the trip several times before and on the way. Some people seem utterly unprepared. They either don’t have their info at all, or have to login to their web mail, or find some printed paper at the bottom of their enormous suitcase. And then they tend to have tons of questions. I check out the facilities beforehand online so I know what to expect and how to use them.

cpcallen 5y ago
I recently rented a car for the first time, with a co-driver. The rental was paid in advance online (which seemed to be the norm here in the UK) and I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward and quick to collect the car. Instead, after waiting about 15 minutes for the single person ahead of us in line to be processed, we were met with a series of demands for various sorts of verification and documentation that has not been mentioned in the online checkout process. This included having to use a .gov.uk website to get a code that would allow the company to validate our driving licences, and provide a proof of address (despite our addresses being printed on our government-issued, just-verified-authentic driver's licences.) The whole process took nearly half an hour just at the desk. I am glad that there was no one waiting in line behind us most of that time. I've now joined ZipCar and will hopefully never have to deal with a traditional car hire company again.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  Car rental in the U.K. as a U.K. resident is more complicated than car rental as a non-U.K. resident. Not 100% sure why, but it seems that U.K. residents are required to basically do full IDV (which requires two proofs of address) and prove they have no points in their licence. None of this applies to non-U.K. residents, which probably make up the majority of customers, so the rental website usually put all these details in the fine print. Also while your looking at Zipcar (which is great) also take a peek at Virtuo. Only place I’ve ever enjoyed renting a car from.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

sjg007 5y ago

There's always someone trying to get a discount or unhappy with their car or something. This is why you join the rewards program, preregister and do the walk out program where everything is all preset and ready to go.

spurgu 5y ago

In Europe the companies I've dealt with try to confuse you into buying various insurances, where you were under the impression that you had already paid for it when doing the online booking. Figuring out what the actual situation is takes time. Tip: Do your research and read the fine print online before you leave for your trip.

bennysomething 5y ago

Standing at the counter is June at as bad, I'm still wondering wtf the guy is looking at on his screen