I made the wonderfully intelligent mistake of leaving my TomTom GPS in a Zipcar on my recent trip to San Francisco, only realizing this once I got back to Australia. I whined about this on Twitter and, completely unprompted, I received the following email from Zipcar – they had seen my tweet, matched up my account info, and checked the lost and found for the car I had to see if anything had been turned in.
This is how brands should be using social media. None of this “send us your account information and we’ll see what we can do” crap. Zipcar were proactive in seeing my issue, and did all they could to help (despite the issue being entirely my fault). They didn’t even reply to me on Twitter; This was just to satisfy a customer, not for the publicity.
Zipcar: great job, and you’re sitting very high in my books now.
From: “Lien Bui (Zipcar SF)” <redacted@zipcar.com>
Date: 14 June 2010 9:58:21 PM AEST
To: bck@bradkellett.com
Subject: Re: Zipcar
Reply-To: “Lien Bui (Zipcar SF)”
Dear Bradley,
I wanted to follow up on your reservation with Zipcar Iams regarding your lost item. I have followed up but unfortunately did not see any reports regarding your lost item. I understand your frustration regarding this and will make sure to let you know should we find it.
In the future, if you realize you’ve left an item in a Zipcar you can simply return to the Zipcar up to 3 hours past the end of your reservation with no additional charge. As long as someone else hasn’t taken the car yet, the vehicle will allow you to enter with your Zipcard. Just don’t drive it or you will be charged.
You can also use the online Lost & Found to see if any members have reported this.
Again, I apologize for the inconvenience, and if I see or hear anything, I will be sure to notify you of any updates.
Regards,
Lien Bui (Zipcar SF)
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