Interview:

Putting Customers in the Driver’s Seat at Budget.com

A Q&A with John Peebles, Vice President, Online Marketing for Avis Budget Group.

It seems like it should be a simple decision — you just need a car for a few days for a business trip, or maybe a week for a vacation. But do you log on to a brand-name car rental site, or go through the online travel agency you used for your airline tickets? And do you want full-size, compact, economy — and what do those designations mean? Benchmark sat down recently with John Peebles, vice president of online marketing for Avis Budget Group, Inc., to get the inside story on Budget.com, the top-rated rental car site, to find out how they’ve built an outstanding user experience for car rental shoppers.

Benchmark: In the most recent Keynote Customer Experience study for rental cars, Budget came out ahead of all the other car rental companies (though not the online travel agencies) in almost every user experience index — overall customer experience, brand impact, customer satisfaction. Last year, you were fourth and fifth in a lot of categories. What changes have you made to your site in the past year that helped you to boost your score?

John Peebles: We have made a lot of changes to the site to improve the customer experience. We have invested a lot in customer service content and how that content is found, as well as the booking process. We have been testing and tweaking the site over and over again, including 2,000 different home pages in the past year.