It's ironic that I often have a harder time getting to meetings with local clients than to offices that are a plane ride away. In the last few months I have been working with companies based in Foster City and Sunnyvale (30-40 minute drives from Organic's San Francisco office), and my teams have had a weekly struggle trying to find a car to get down there; in this office, no one drives themselves to work.
Things reached a head this week and we were scrambling to find a ride. Someone suggested Zipcar, so I walked down their local office, two blocks from here, registered online at dedicated PC set up in the front, and in ten minutes I was out the door and into a car parked right across the street. The speed was truly astonishing. Dropping off the car four hours later was even better. A permanent parking spot in a lot two blocks from the office probably saved me another twenty dollars in parking fees or cab fare to and from a remote car rental site.
The final part of the Exceptional Experience- easily accessible online billing and a same-day follow-up email thanking me for my business and asking me to rate my first-time rental.
I think Zip has done a great job positioning itself as the business-friendly, ease-of-use company, versus the non-profit local option (City Car Share) or the first-to-market/category creator (Flexcar). It's interesting that all three companies play down the eco-friendly aspects of car sharing. Perhaps because most Americans say that green advertising is "just a marketing tactic"?
Misha Cornes
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Zipcar is brilliant. Unlike the others they also have a brand personality that makes it, well, FEEL fun to drive even if running out to get groceries for an hour. (Names for each car, quirky tone and communications, and local events.)
They also scale from the environmental Prius to a utilitarian Honda Element to a lux BMW…whatever your mood or need. For the higher end models they don’t have the URLs or Zipcar logos on the exterior, a big plus.
My wife did some early identity work for the Toronto category creator AutoShare; they started out by trying to market a “green” angle on car sharing, and got almost no traction with it (pardon the pun). For one thing, if you’re only driving occasionally, it’s not really *that* much greener than having a car sitting in the driveway. On the other hand, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than insuring and maintaining that parked car – and judging by your experience, more pleasant than dealing with the average car rental company. They seem to have found a sweet spot there.
i LOVE zipcar! It’s nice to see them getting some play on the bloglines. My husband and I been a devoted Zipster since i moved into NYC over 4 years ago. (he even uses them for his business meetings on LI, too)
And the convenience-factor, barely scratches the surface. I agree, they have a story to tell with the Eco-friendly cars, but not all of their rides offer that enviro-benefit (in NYC they have gas-guzzling Mini Coopers)
Perhaps Organic can help them with the latest version of their Web site (it’s not the most user-friendly–and I’m a creative at an interactive ad agency!)