Enterprise is a licensed automobile rental and transportation company. It’s headquarter is situated in Clayton, Missouri, Greater St. Louis, United States of America. Also, they manage the sale of used cars, commercial fleet management, and deals in the rental of commercial trucks. Many people know Enterprise, especially its slogan, “we’ll pick you up.”

The question is: does Enterprise pick you up?

Having a nice tagline that draws the interest of customers doesn’t guarantee a company’s integrity to obey their claims. Thus, the primary thing we are considering is, does Enterprise pick you up? To get the correct answer to this question, we need to look at their customers’ feedback after they must have had a real-life experience with the company. From customers’ feedback, the answer is Yes, Enterprise will pick you up but only at non-airport locations and during regular business hours. Enterprise doesn’t supply rental cars to customers’ location; instead, they will send a representative to pick up the customer from his/her home, mechanic shop, office, etc. and take them to the Enterprise location to complete rental transactions.

The Origin Of Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Jack C. Taylor created Enterprise in the year 1957. The first name of the company was “Executive Leasing Company” but later changed to “Enterprise” in 1969. The aircraft carrier (USS Enterprise) that Jack Taylor served under during World War II was what inspired the new name.

The USS Enterprise (CV-6) was among the three American aircraft that survived the war. The launching of the aircraft was in 1936, commissioned before the war, and was the 6th carrier of the United States Navy. After the acquisition of Vanguard Automotive Group in 2007, Enterprise Rent-A-Car became a branch of Enterprise Holdings, Inc.

Enterprise Holdings, Inc. is what we consider to be a private company. It has its headquarter in Missouri, United States. The owners of Enterprise Holdings, Inc are the Taylor Family. The establishment of the parent organization was in 2009 as they obtained the Vanguard Automotive Group. The Vanguard Automotive Group used to fill in as a parent organization of Alamo Rent a Car and National Car Rental. However, this is not true anymore since Enterprise obtained it. The organization which is the parent organization has other auxiliary organizations, for example, Enterprise CarShare, National Car Rental, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Alamo Rent a Car.

The Track Record Of Enterprise

Enterprise Holdings, Inc sells its used cars via Enterprise Car Sales. It came out 21st on Forbes list of 2008 as one of the largest companies in America. In the United States alone, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the second-largest and well-known rental car company; the first is Hertz. Enterprise consists of more than 419 airport locations and not less than 9,000 home city locations.

It is a company that specializes in replacing or renting cars to consumers in need of car replacement. The needs of their customers for a car may be due to theft, mechanical repair, accident, etc. Also, their customers may need vehicles for special events such as a leisure trip or short business trip. The local market is the primary focus of Enterprise Holdings, Inc.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car began to grow and extend its reach to the airports in the late 1990s. In 1994, it gained entry into the European market. Currently, its network has been able to expand to serving airports in the U.K., United States, Spain, Ireland, Canada, and Germany.

In 2005, a firm called “J.D. Power,” popularly known for researching customer satisfaction identified “Enterprise” severally as the leading company in terms of customer satisfaction for rental car companies close to airports or at airports.

J.D. Power and Associates is a consumer intelligence and data analytics company based in America, founded by James David Power III. The focus of the company is conducting surveys of product quality, customer satisfaction, banking & payments, insurance, wealth & lending, health, telecommunications, travel & utility sectors, and the buyers’ behavior for the automobile. It also researches customer satisfaction on the quality and dependability of new cars.

In 2007, Enterprise ranked 9th in the list of Business Week’s top 25 companies customer service. Then in 2006, Enterprise was one of the top ten places to start a career, though, as, at that time, their company’s wages for management trainees were at an average of $34,000, which is among the smallest on the list.

It merely means that Enterprise is a good option for people willing to go into business by creating branch offices with full responsibility for generating profit for themselves. Meanwhile, one has to satisfy specific qualifications and requirements to get a promotion to become an assistant manager.

Many of these requirements depend on the employee’s sales and success level in the management training program. However, a successful manager can become an area manager (who is responsible for many branches) or even gain a position at headquarters within five years.

Enterprise also has a system called “average car rate” that aids in generating revenue. This system involves ranges of vehicles from small vehicles that are kept for insurance replacement already paid for at discounted insured rates, to expensive luxury vehicles that are rented for three figures upwards. The aim is to sell cars perceived as highly rated for customers at a high price.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is currently the official car rental service of the UEFA European League, NHL, and NCAA. In 2018, it received a 15 years license to hold the naming rights for Enterprise Center.

The Controversies With Enterprise’s Slogan – “We’ll Pick You Up.”

Enterprise trademarked the tagline, “Pick Enterprise We’ll pick you up” in 1995. It went viral, and the company became famous. Discount Car & Truck Rentals, a different rental company, tried to copy Enterprise’s tagline in January 1996 by trying to trademark “we’ll pick you up.”

It became a legal battle between the two rental companies but ended with Enterprise as the victor. As a result, Enterprise also got the shorter tagline, “we’ll pick you up.”

Later, Hertz, another car rental company, also started using the tagline “we’ll pick you up” without acknowledging any copyrights. In August 1998, Enterprise reacted by taking legal actions against its competitor, Hertz, about the similarities between each company’s slogan.

However, Hertz rejected all claims. David Parkoff, Hertz’s assistant general counsel, said the company believes that it has the right to use any English words, including “we’ll pick you up” in a descriptive and informational sense, just as it presently does. He also said that Enterprise’s claim of trademark rights for those words does not prevent other companies from using it, that their trademark is misplaced. In spite of this, Enterprise did not back off. Instead, they went on with their lawsuit in 1998, which led to the ban on Hertz from using the phrase.

In 1999, Advantage Car Rental also attempted to trademark a similar phrase, “We’ll even pick you up.” Predictably, Enterprise also won the tagline battle and obtained the trademark for the short phrase, making it two in total.

Furthermore, Enterprise took a more preventive step to cover its track. It went ahead to trademark “Elige Enterprise, Nosotros te Recogemos” in Spanish. In the English Language, it means “Choose Enterprise; we’ll pick you up.”

The Controversies With The Safety Of Enterprise

66,000 Chevrolet Impalas purchased by the company during the model year 2006 to 2008 were without side curtain airbags. They bought up to 5,000 Buick LaCrosses and Chevrolet Cobalts without the side airbags. It resulted in helping the company to save at least $175 per vehicle and $11.5 million in total.

The practice adopted by Enterprise does not violate any federal law. However, it came to national attention when they were about selling cars. They sold each of the vehicles to customers with representing that each vehicle has side curtain airbags.

The company later affirmed that it was an error, and admitted that they inaccurately advertised and sold up to 748 Chevrolet Impalas from 2006 to 2008. The identity of the cars came up online as consisting of side airbags, which is wrong because each one has no side airbags. A spokesman from Enterprise also affirmed that the company would inform customers that they mistakenly purchased the cars and offer to repurchase the vehicles if the customers are not satisfied with the error.

Safety Research and Strategies, a company that is working with the automotive industry and focuses on carrying out safety research, stated that the removal of safety features from a car like removing the side airbag is an unusual practice. Sean Kane from Safety Research and Strategies said that throughout his 17 years of working in the automotive industry, he has never experienced a scenario where a company removes standard safety features from vehicles or where a company removes side curtain airbags from vehicles to cut cost.

Conclusion

The slogan of Enterprise, which is, “We’ll pick you up,” raised many questions in the heart of consumers seeking to patronize the company. One of such questions is, does Enterprise pick you up? However, we realize that Enterprise will pick you up so long as you are within the validated perimeter, during work hours, or away from the airport.

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