Barbara Whelan - Manager Avis at Dublin Airport
I saw an ad for Avis in the paper in 1996, when I was just back from living in the US and I thought, I could do that. I expected to stay for a few months but I’ve been here ever since.
I live in Rush so it’s a 20 minute drive to work in the mornings, to be in for 9am.
I’ve three sites in the airport, desks at Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 and a car return site just outside the airport. I spend my days moving between them. Since T2 opened, I been getting an awful lot more exercise.
I’ll start the day in Terminal 1 and make sure everybody is in and check the fleet to make sure there are enough cars ready for the day’s bookings. If not I’ll need to sort that fast.
To the onlooker it must look like we do the same tasks all the time but in fact every day is different. Yes, you’re renting cars but you’re meeting different people and dealing with new situations all the time. Just a minute ago I was helping a couple who had broken the key of their minivan, in Donegal. On other days it might be trying to help someone who has arrived without their driving licence.
We are trained to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes with the result that we will always go out of our way to help.
Most of our business is leisure tourists and I get such a buzz off the people arriving off the plane. We’re the first people they see when they arrive and they are just so happy to be here. They want us to pull out our maps and show them the Ring of Kerry and basically have the banter.
With business travellers it’s different. They want no fanfare, just to get in and out quickly, so we have to flip between customer modes to suit.
The days are so busy lunch is a sandwich at the counter but you’d never be bored with all the people watching. We’re like the fashion police, keeping an eye on everyone.
When they are dropping cars back we’ll ask how their trip was and how the car was and take a note of any suggestions because it’s our last chance to talk to them and our business is built on repeats. So much so that I see the same faces coming back time and again.
Some of the requests we get are hilarious. We’d have people tell us they can’t, absolutely can’t, drive a red car, because a clairvoyant told them not to. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, but we’ll certainly try.