My original booking was for Saturday 9th through to Sunday 17th July. Unfortunately, my flight was delayed by 17 hours, meaning that I could not get to Sixt until 4am Sunday. I phoned through to explain and see if you [Sixt] could reserve my car to Sunday - but although you explained that you could not, you at least knew that I was not a no-show and had a reason for my delay. You made me aware that the Sixt service at Cologne airport did not open until approx 7am.
Your employee arrived just after 6:30 and because she was also the person who took the call on Saturday, she knew that we were the people delayed. She immediately came over to introduce herself and said that she would be able to attend to us after some initial setting up - which was obviously fine for us. This was a great display of service... then it gets better.
She explained again that the car we booked could not be reserved, but she would check stock. With this being a Sunday, she explained that if there was nothing in stock that we felt was appropriate, we may have to wait for some time until something came in (she explained really nicely) and she then offered us a coffee. It was clear that she knew we had had no real sleep for over 24 hours, were frustrated with our flight experience, and that we were exhausted. Her attitude and understanding was perfect... it gets better still.
She identified that the only cars in stock were luxury cars, much higher than we wanted to pay. It was perfectly fine for Sixt to expect us to pay the difference because our delay was not their fault, but she did not phrase it that way at all. She then offered to use her personal discount to allow us the option to book one of those cars, at a more reasonable rate, rather than have us wait further.
Whilst we were discussing this, by chance a car came in around 7:30 which was appropriate for us, which we took, with her discount because it was slightly pricer then we wanted to pay.
Overall the caring and understanding nature of your employee, her acknowledgement of our situation and perfect handling of us as customers is a credit to you. My only regret is that I did not record her name - but whoever she was, early on Sunday 10th July - she delivered Celebrity-level customer service and is a credit to Sixt.
Our holiday, starting with a 17+ hour delay, got worse, with our return flight cancelled, meaning that we had to hand in the car early morning on the 16th instead of 17th July ... but the middle part was good and we shall always remember how exceptionally well we were treated that morning in Cologne airport, by the lady at Sixt.
