Hertz pricing transparency case study part 2

Continuing on from part 1 of this pricing clarity and transparency case study, I'm going to explain some of the specific challenges we faced, in terms of time, content, functionality and conflicting views and priorities.

This is Part 2 of a two part series. Part 1 can be found here

Case Study Part 1

An easily overlooked point is whether the prices displayed should be inclusive or exclusive of tax.

The EU Commission, for example, insisted that “headline” prices are displayed inclusive of tax. This meant that for EU citizens (and citizens of many other countries), the prices displayed at the point of selection for vehicles, ancillary items such as child seats, etc., and also insurances, were displayed inclusive of tax.

Those same requirements did not apply to some countries, including the US.

Let's look at some of examples:

Why might a car rental company display prices as Approximate or Estimated, even when making the effort to be transparent about pricing? After all, most customers want to know precisely how much they'll be paying, and not a estimation.

On one hand, there is the potential for the customer to add other options to their rental when they arrive at the counter. This might include insurance waiver upgrades, or adding another driver. But in my opinion if the selections made online are all that the customer requires, why might there still be the need to state that the price is approximate?

Currency exchange rates are often the cause. Let me explain...

Currency exchange rates

Fluctuations in currency exchange rates happen all the time, and if you check the exchange rates between two currencies today, by tomorrow they might have changed. So how can this impact car rental prices?

Let's look at some of examples:

For this reason part of the Pricing Clarity implementation was handled with some logic in the coding based on whether the source and destination currencies are the same, and whether ALL of the total cost was being paid online or at the rental location, or whether part of the total was being paid online, with the remainder at the location.

This is why we needed three variations of the messaging which enabled us to be compliant, and of course this made things far clearer for the customer.

The display of prices in different currencies can also apply to the page where the vehicles are displayed.

The currency to pay online will typically be displayed in the currency of the renters currency of residence (source currency), and the currency to be paid at the location will typically be in the currency of the rental location (destination currency).

Comparing Pay Now to Pay Later rates

If both source and destination currencies are the same, that makes the display very straightforward.

But if the currencies are different, and the price for Pay Now is displayed in source currency whilst the price for the Pay Later option displayed in destination currency, it can be difficult for a customer to compare Pay Now and Pay Later Rates.

Let's look at some of examples:

So by providing a like-for-like comparison in the same currency for Pay Now and Pay Later rates, it can make the decision easier for the customer.

An example is shown below, where the Pay Later price is displayed in destination currency, but with an approximate price shown in source currency. This will usually be based on today's exchange rate between the two currencies, but it has the potential to change when the exchange rate changes.

However, if the Pay Later rate uses real time currency conversion which is based on the currency of the rental location, it may be necessary to display Approx next to the price. This is because currency exchange rates change frequently, and are likely to have changed... up or down... by the time the rental takes place.

Source country rules

Within the source country table there would be, amongst other things, content which provided the terms and conditions for cancellation of reservations if the customer had chosen to pre-pay for their reservation online instead of at the counter when they collect the vehicle.

The free cancellation terms were described, and the charges for late cancellation or “no shows” were displayed in the currency of the country the renter lived in.

If the renter lived in a different country, the charges would display in a different currency, and if they had chosen to pay at the location instead of pre-paying on line, different content would display regarding cancellations, etc.

Destination country rules

Destination country rules would, amongst other things, specify conditions about driver’s age and any surcharges. Age rules varied from country to country, but there were other rules too.

For example, regardless of where you live, if you’re renting in Australia, rentals paid for by a valid Visa or Mastercard credit, debit or charge card are subject to a surcharge rate of 1.35%

An additional challenge was that important information about mandatory charges like is surcharge on card in Australia needed to be communicated to customers much earlier in the customer journey instead of them being presented in the Ts&Cs right at the end.

Therefore we needed to either add or re-purpose content placeholders which were capable of displaying content based on country, age, and other criteria.

Vehicle rate page example

The example below shows a number of such features, based on a young driver from the UK making a rental reservation for a pickup location in Australia.

Note the following:

• A: The message relating to age only displays because of the age selected on the homepage.
• B: The message relating to Credit Card Surcharge only displays because the chose pickup location is in Australia.
• C: The “Pre-Pay” price is shown in source currency (GBP) because the renter lives in the UK and would be pre-paying in pounds (£)
• D: The “Pay at Location” price is shown in destination currency (AUD) because the rental is taking place in Australia, and the renter would be paying in Australian dollars when he arrives at the location to collect the car.
• E: There is also an approximated cost* for the “Pay at Location” rate, shown in GBP. This helps the customer to make an informed decision on whether to save money by pre-paying.

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Car rental companies often have age restrictions which are in place to offset the additional risk often associated with younger less experienced drivers.

Young driver surcharges usually apply to drivers under 25. However, because the age rules differ from country to country and are based on the country of rental, we needed to ask the customer where they wanted to pick the vehicle up from before we were able to ask their age at time of rental from a dynamically generated list.

The examples below show how the selection of pickup location determines ages displayed in the list, but there are two other points to make.

• The country rules for the UK and France and display ages which are more than 25.
  
  These “higher minimum ages” do not incur a surcharge, but they will prevent the customer from selecting vehicles which require the driver to be at least 27, 30, or whatever is relevant within that country.
  
  
• The country rules for the UK and France require that the customer makes a conscious selection of their age, whereas the country rules for the US actually default the age to “25+” and rely on the customer changing it if they’re under 25.
  
  The EU Commission did not allow pre-selection in this way, but the US are fine with pre-selection.

Some businesses (not just in car rental) feel that if the rules, restrictions, fees, charges, responsibilities and obligations are all contained somewhere in the Terms and Conditions, then they’re “covered”

But it’s hardly fair on the customer to expect them to search around during the buying process for information which isn’t there, and only present them with the opportunity to locate it when you required them to check the little box next to the “I have read… and agree to…” declaration just before committing to the purchase.

Let’s also remember that Terms and Conditions are often long, generic, and often presented in the smallest font they can get away with before it becomes almost unreadable.

I personally view this practice of using smallprint for long-form legally binding terms as a way of saying “We’re obliged to make this information available to you, but we don’t want to make it easy for you to read and understand.”

Dynamic Terms and Conditions

The way I approached this at Hertz was to present legal content dynamically, which made it shorter, more relevant, and easier to read.

The way I approached this at Hertz was to present legal content dynamically, which made it shorter, more relevant, and easier to read.

The terms and conditions were made to be more dynamically controlled, based in the first instance at country level, and then based on selections made.

For example, if a customer lived in the UK and was renting in France, there would be specific content for UK residents held in a database table based on source country rules. There would also be specific content for rentals taking place in France, which were held in a database table based on destination country rules.

Making the terms and conditions easier to read

It was an advantage that I had a lot of experience in HTML and CSS, because the default display of content which was pulled from the country driven database tables was plain, unformatted text, often without any line breaks.

To make the legal content easier to read, I applied simple HTML tags and in-line CSS to format and style the content, without having to wait for any of the development team to factored the work into their long list of tasks.

This meant that I was able to improve the display and readability of a many areas of content. This was better for our customers, and it also satisfied the legal team at Hertz, who were under pressure from the EU Commission and the CMA to apply changes to make things more compliant and user friendly.

It is disappointing to see that some of the styling and presentation of this content as well as the display of a number of other content areas has deteriorated since I left Hertz in 2021. At least much of the content and logic is still in place, but the visual presentation has somewhat suffered.

I don't want to be judged on what customers see today!

Insurance plays a big part when renting a car. After all, you can't rent a car without it, but what exactly are you covered for?

The EU Commission required that we (and other major car rental companies) needed to be very clear about insurance excess liabilities for both theft and damage for each vehicle type or group.

In most cases, the level of insurance provided as standard included Collision Damage Waiver and Theft Protection, and both required excess to be paid.

We needed to be clear what that excess would cost for the vehicle selected.

We needed to communicate whether there was an option which would either reduce or remove the excess, and what the cost of that upgraded insurance option would be for that vehicle in that country for the duration of that specific rental.

SuperCover, for example was (and still is) an insurance excess waiver option which can be added to a rental. The benefits and costs of upgrading to SuperCover needed to be made clear.

The cost would depend on the location, dates, times and vehicle selected. However, we also need to make it clear that SuperCover could not be applied to certain makes and model of car, and would not cover certain ancillary items, such as GPS systems, child seats, etc.

When being transparent about what is included and not included in the price of a rental, it's important to display those items (usually charges or fees) and be clear about what they actually are.

However, different ways of referring to the same or very similar charges were found to vary from country to country too, and the use of industry jargon doesn't help either.

Let's look at some of examples: