BARSTalk winter 2012 - Bluebird Auto Rental Systems

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Letter from the President Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting one of our more remote customers: DTAG South Africa. It’s hard to put into words the burst of pride I felt as I leaned over the rental counters in Johannesburg, Nelspruit, and Cape Town to see the screens I know and love so well! You probably feel the same as you go about town and see one of your rental vehicles – hopefully being driven carefully or parked correctly! Many of the managers and employees took advantage of my visit to show me how they use the system, and I was able to show them a few tricks. Since my visit, we also entered several Software Action Requests to address their needs. I now invite you to tell us what you need by using our new blog! We, in turn, will be posting our ideas and thoughts as well. And of course, if you plan to attend the Car Rental Show, I’d like to see you. Don’t let the (typically large) crowds around our booth scare you away. This year we’ll have an unprecedented number of people staffing the booth so that we can talk to ALL of you. As always, if you have any problems, concerns or questions, please contact me directly. Consolidate Customer Records In RentWorks version 3 (and soon in version 4), you have the ability to manually consolidate Renter/Customer records using the “utrntcon” utility. First you are able to search for a renter by their name, ID (as assigned by RentWorks), Home Phone, Drivers License Number, Corporate ID, or VIP Number (as assigned by a franchisor). After you select the primary record to be used (preferably the one with the most recent, complete and accurate data), you can then select all of the existing duplicate records to be associated with the primary record – and delete them. Angela Margolit President Tel: 973.989.2423 Email: angela@barsnet.com Need Barcode Labels? Imprint Enterprises has been serving the product identification and labeling industry for 22 years. They offer: • 750 Stocked Labels & Ribbons for Zebra, Datamax, Sato, Intermec, and virtually any other label printer • Custom sized thermal labels • Pre-printed labels • Durable asset labels and facility labels • On-site and depot printer service For ordering or product questions, call 800-433-4512 or visit http://www.imprint-e.com. For service or printer technical support questions, please call 855-745-4468 or visit http://service.imprint-e.com. The reason you cannot simply delete duplicate records is because the rental contract has to be linked to a renter/ customer record. Using this utility ensures that the correct renter information is still associated with previous contracts. Note: If a renter has changed his/her address, only the most current address will be used, which may not necessarily be the one used at the time of the rental. ❷
What Is a Billable Support Call? Bluebird is one of the few software companies which allows their customers with a support agreement to enter as many support calls as they want. However, there are still calls which may be billable, such as: ■ After hours/weekend support/upgrades/installations (Emergency Beeper Service is available during this time.) ■ Media and shipping costs for New Releases and Service Packs. ■ Duplicate Media and related shipping costs ■ Progress Software Upgrades and New Releases ■ Changes to Credit Card Processing profiles (such as changing owners, banks, or processors) ■ Hardware support, such as diagnosing hardware failures and re-loading print drivers ■ Network/LAN/VPN support ■ Diagnosing phone line or Internet problems ■ Accounting problems not related to the correct functioning of the software ■ Reinstallation of software after system crash ■ Reloading of Progress ■ Migrating RentWorks and Progress to a new server ■ Training of new employees ■ Follow-up training ■ Print Program forms design or changes Top Ten Ways to Lose Money in Car Rentals Courtesy of Frank Colonna, President of Triangle Rent A Car 10. Don’t keep records – they only confuse you. 9. Give away free loaners – you’ll make lots of friends. 8. Don’t keep your cars clean – they only get dirty again. 7. Any time there is a factory rebate program, add to your fleet. If they are not selling now, they’ll be great in a year. 6. Let everyone borrow your cars to run down the street – customers will wait. 5. Don’t keep service records – after all, it’s a new car. 4. Don’t keep track of your Rental Agreements – no one would pocket cash. 3. Never check on a rental customer’s credit or I.D. It takes too long and will just annoy him – he’ll never lie to you. 2. Don’t check your cars in and out – the customer will never take the spare tire, battery, lighter, or switch tires on you. 1. Always accept checks. We Now Have a Blog We often think of things which may be useful to add to our product, but didn’t have a forum to allow for input from our customers. Now we do! To check it out, simply go to our Customer Support Site’s “Cool Stuff” link: http://support.barsnet.com/cs.html and click on Bluebird Blog. ■ Data Migration from another system to RentWorks ■ Data entry ■ Balancing Daily Business Reports ■ Research to find user data entry mistakes ■ Performance tuning and Progress database administration services, such as Dump and Loads and repairing bad keys in the database, truncating the bi file, and re-indexing Note that you’ll first have to create an account (all it needs is your name). Any contribution has to be approved by us before it will be posted. ❸
Page 1: Send us an E-mail: info@barsnet.com
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BARSTalk winter 2012 - Bluebird Auto Rental Systems

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