Article

Vanguard wins for car rental kiosks

Alamo and National Rent a Car win Industry Deployer award.

August 12, 2007

After security checks, long flights and baggage claims, the last thing travelers want to do is wait in another line at the airport. Fortunately self-service is making its way to end of the air travel gauntlet in the form of car-rental kiosks.

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The company with the most car-rental kiosk deployments thus far has been Vanguard Car Rental USA Inc., operators of the National Car Rental and Alamo Car Rental brands. Vanguard's self-service kiosk deployment earned the company the Industry Deployer of the Year Award at Self Service Expo in April. The award was given at an awards ceremony at the Mandalay Bay convention center in Las Vegas.

 

Vanguard's new ad campaign focuses on using kiosks to cut down wait times.

Susan Palazzese, vice president of business development for Vanguard, said that the company is currently operating 262 kiosks; 152 at Alamo locations and 110 at National locations. The rollout began in November 2006 after several successful market tests in Jacksonville, Fla., Las Vegas and Dallas.

 

Alamo Rent a Car, characterized by its blue and yellow color scheme, is geared toward families and leisure travel. National's customers are mainly business travelers.

 

Palazzese said that Vanguard sees kiosks as a way of cutting down wait time and lines to improve customer experience, as well as a way to differentiate the Alamo and National brands in a commoditized market. 

 

Research supports their beliefs. A survey entitled "NCR Queue Review" from NCR Corp. found that waiting in line to rent a car ranked in the top 10 of customers most frustrating waits. A year after the first deployment, Palazzese reports that the kiosks decrease customer transaction time by 25 percent.

 

Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental locations are primarily in airports, where self-service is becoming more of a staple. "Travelers are already used to self-service at airports with online check-in and ATMs," Palazzese said.

 

Vanguard is the first company in the car rental industry to offer their customers self-service kiosks to completely replace the employee in the transaction. Recently other car rental companies, such as Hertz, have planned to roll out kiosks this year.

 

"Everyone is using loyalty and other programs for promotion," Palazzese said. "We wanted to stand out by using technology to offer customers a self-service option."

 

Although neither Alamo nor National has tracked the incremental profits or losses of having the kiosks, Vanguard reports that the customer response has been very positive. Managers and employees at Alamo and National branches have also been pleased.

 

"This has been a very quiet deployment," Palazzese said. "We haven't seen a lot of problems."

 

The deployment may be quiet it is by no means a soft launch. Vanguard, in conjunction with Fallon advertising agency, began a national advertising campaign in March 2007 highlighting their kiosks as a way to skip the lines at their car-rental facilities.

 

A scene from Vanguard's Alamo car rental kiosk commercial.

The "Happy Trails" campaign is a series of TV commercials chronicling the adventures of Al, a beaver and Mo, a buffalo. Al, the smarter of the two, is constantly trying to convince his bovine counterpart to use the Alamo kiosk and reject his herd instinct to wait in line with the others. Like the situation at most car rental locations, Al and Mo are the only ones at the kiosks and while the others form a long line at the counter.

 

"We have yet to see people put life into kiosks, like we have by using Al and Mo. We are very proud of these new ads and are delighted at the positive consumer reaction," Palazzese said.

 

Palazzese also said the campaign, including the TV commercials, airport signage and messages at the time of reservation, is designed to make people aware of the kiosks before they go to pick up their cars.

 

Click here and here to watch Alamo's commercials on YouTube.

 

The kiosk hardware for the Vanguard deployment was designed and built by KIOSK Information Systems. The model in the deployment is a variation of KIOSK's Stubby model kiosk, said KIOSK marketing manager Cheryl Madeson.

 

Vanguard's kiosk software was developed in a joint effort by Nanonation and Perot Systems, Vanguard's IT company. The software was designed to make the rental and transaction quick and easy, as Vanguard said its primary purpose it to cut down lines. Each screen has a progress bar for the transaction and a dynamic attract loop. The kiosk also suggests upgrades such as larger class cars, child car seats, GPS units and collision coverage.