Avis Rent A Car Selects Blue Pumpkin Software toImprove Customer Care; Leading Car Rental...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 30, 1999--

Blue Pumpkin Software announced today that Avis Rent A Car (NYSE:AVI), the second largest general-use car rental business in the world, has selected Blue Pumpkin's PrimeTime workforce management software to schedule rental agents

Avis' decision to use a software program designed for call centers exemplifies PrimeTime's adaptability to various businesses and situations.

Rental Sales Agents for Avis assist customers by processing their rental transactions. Currently the company has a car rental fleet of over one million vehicles and completes approximately 15 million rental transactions annually.

The ten busiest airport locations, including San Francisco, Newark, Chicago and Orlando, process rentals 24 hours a day. As a result of their impressive rental volume and extended-hours, creating schedules for these teams has become more and more challenging over the years.

"As our business at these locations grew, it became increasingly more difficult to continue creating schedules manually," said Eric Schnitzler, Avis' Director of Learning and Development.

"When our Southeast Area Controller, John Dovi, and I started investigating different solutions, we realized call centers had basically the same needs and parameters as car rental agencies. Their call time is our rental transaction time; their call volume is our rental volume. So we simply adapted the software to fit our circumstances."

Schnitzler further revealed that Avis has sophisticated systems that provide information about rental demand. As a result, managers knew when their highest rental volumes would be -- they simply needed a more reliable way to incorporate that data into their current schedules.

"Since implementing PrimeTime at these select locations, our service levels have definitely increased," Schnitzler continued.

"PrimeTime better enables us to schedule the right people at the right time, resulting in rental transactions being processed faster than ever before. Plus, by scheduling more effectively, we're greatly reducing overtime. That alone has more than paid for the software investment. Overall, PrimeTime has added science to a complex scheduling process."

About Avis Rent A Car

Avis is one of the world's leading providers of comprehensive automotive transportation and vehicle management solutions, with strengths in car rental, vehicle leasing and vehicle management services. Avis operates the second largest general-use car rental business in the world, with locations in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Latin American/Caribbean region.