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A helpful summary of Hertz's financial gymnastics. That aside, like Blockbuster before them, they seem to uniquely believe that the worst part of their customer experience is a feature, not a bug. I'll explain. https://twitter.com/danprimack/status/1265298481767473153
What could Blockbuster & Hertz possibly have in common, you ask? Blockbuster used to think that late fees were a great feature: it certainly looked good on the balance sheet, a nice reliable revenue stream, much to shareholder excitement. What about the customer?
On the customer side, this 'feature' was so loathed that the mere promise of no late fees was enough to make Netflix's 'rental by mail' value prop attractive. Netflix didn't have to work too hard to prove that as a differentiator.
Similarly with Hertz around refueling charges: someone of their size could easily pass on fuel recharge savings on to their customers as a benefit. But no -- they preferred to nickel & dime & generally make the rental experience one wrought with stress & the opposite of delight.
It didn't have to be this way, but both these cases serve as a perfect illustration for why Innovators Dilemma challenges are so hard on incumbents: they think that their most loathed functionality is actually a feature.
