There are times when a rental operation must turn-away potential business. For example, the client required the rental to begin at a time when the pickup location is scheduled to be closed. Or the renter is younger than the minimum age required. Tracking the reason and frequency of these turn-downs may reveal rental opportunities that can be exploited. CARS+ provides a method for tracking turn-downs both when a reservation is being made and at the counter at the time of Open. As a general rule, there are two types of reasons for a turn-down:
Rental office is not open at the time the renter needs the car
The class of car required is overbooked
The desired pickup location is not served by any of your locations
Underage driver
Credit Card could not be authorized
A. TURNDOWN REASON CODES
Using the program, Edit Res Turndown Codes, define the various reasons why business may be turned away that you want to track.
OPTION: __ EDIT RES TURNDOWN CODES
1 Turndown code C1
2 Description LOC CLOSED FOR PICKUP TIME
3 Expired [Y/N] N
4 Res Only [Y/N] Y
5 Rpt Always [Y/N] Y
1SAVE 2NEXT 3ERASE 4DELETE 5BACKUP 6 7HELP 8
B. EDIT MISC CONTROL FIELDS
Use the program, Edit Res Turndown Codes to activate the turn down logic from RA Open.
Page7 , Field 23: Open Turndowns
Enter "Y" to activate this feature.
If in the course of booking a reservation it is apparent that you cannot meet the client's need, go to subwindow T of the reservation screen and fill in the fields to record the facts of the turn-down.B. WHEN THE RESERVED CLIENT CALLS BACK AND CANCELS THE RESERVATION
The screen will then display:
OPTION: __ LOG RESERVATION TURNDOWN CALL
1 Call Date 12-01-14
2 Call Time 1056
3 Employee STEVE
4 Turndown Code TIME
5 Call Phone No
6 Call Summary NEEDED RENTAL AT 10PM SATURDAY
7 Call Class
8 Pickup Date
9 Pickup Location
1SAVE 2NEXT 3ERASE 4DELETE 5BACKUP 6SEARCH 7 8
Pressing F1 from within this subwindow will create a turn-down call record without creating a reservation.
If a turn-down occurs at the counter on a walk-up rental enter the Reservations screen and enter the T subwindow illustrated above and record the turn-down there, again saving the data within the T subwindow.
There is a slight difference between a cancellation and a turn-down on an existing reservation. In both cases, the reservation will be terminated, but a turn-down has behind it a reason for the loss of business that management wants to track. For an example, if the question as to whether a greater number of mini-vans ought to be added to the fleet mix is important, the fact that a reservation for a full sized car was cancelled because the renter was able to reserve a mini-van elsewhere should prompt you to change the res to a turn-down with a "lack of mini-vans" Reason Code rather than just cancelling it.C. WHEN A TURN-DOWN OCCURS AT THE COUNTER ON A RESERVATION BASED RENTAL
To turn-down an existing reservation, enter the D subwindow and place a turn-down code into Field 9. The status of the reservation will automatically change from "O" (Open) to "T" (Turn-down). See the example below:
OPTION: ______________ MISCELLANEOUS
1 Veh#/Hard Alloc */* Create Date/Time/Empl 12-15-14/1037/MMG
2 Res Status T Mod Date/Time/Empl 12-16-14/1543/AMG
3 Days in Bill Cycle * Send Date/Time */*
4 Est Mls per Period * RA# *
5 Res Type * Quote Create Date *
6 Terminate Y/N N Termination # *
7 Contact * Voucher printed *
8 Date/Time/Empl */*/*
9 Turndown Code VANS Quoted Rate *
10 Brand ID *
User tip: The following logic is turned on with the field "Open Turndowns" in Edit Misc. Control Fields as mentioned above in the Set Up section.
When a turn-down occurs at the counter on a reservation based transaction while in the RA Open screen, exit the RA Open screen without saving the transaction. Because a reservation had been loaded into the screen, the following question will be displayed:
SHALL THE RESERVATION BE TERMINATED? Y/NAnswer "N" if the reservation is to be left open for future use (perhaps the res was selected in error).
Answer "Y" if the reservation is to be recorded as a turn-down. If "Y" is entered, you will be required to then enter a Turndown Reason Code. The code entered must be defined for use on Open RAs in the Edit Turn-down Codes screen (Field 4). The status of the reservation will remain "O", open and it will be changed to "N" no-showed when the No-Show Processing program is run later (this is because reservations that are cancelled at the counter are still considered a chargeable reservation in many rental organizations). But due to the Turn-down Reason Code it will be counted as a turn-down on the Turn-down report.
The following reports list turn-downs:
A. The Res Edit Report
This report will only select those reservations whose Status was changed to "T" turn-down (III.B from above) and those reservations that were turned down at the counter (III.C). Select these by requesting Res Status "T".
B. The Reservation Turndown Report
This is the main turn-down report in CARS+. It reports all three types of turn-downs as described in section three above. Turn-downs are sorted by Reason Code and the number of turn-downs per reason is given. Thus you can see that last month you lost 8 rental opportunities because you are not open later on Saturday nights, perhaps enough to justify staying open later on those nights.