InformationWeek

Alamo Rent-A-Car Opens Internet Storefront

They Want To Be The Car Rental Agency For the Information Superhighway

Alamo Rent-a-Car opened a storefront on the World Wide Web on March 28 with a site that promises to be one of the most advanced Internet business addresses to date. While the vast majority of Internet commercial sites are simple electronic brochures, Alamo takes things much further. Beginning in early April, users will use the site to make car reservations.

Right now, potential renters can only view model availability, pricing, and pictures of cars. The y can tap into a database that contains driving directions between major points in 12 cities. And they can view leisure activities nationwide in locations where Alamo has agencies.Travel agencies will find a special area where they can obtain information and book reservations for their customers--and earn a commission.

Alamo hopes that it can use the Internet to improve its relationships with customers. "There's a lot of people who want more information than our reservation system can provide," says John Suomo, company director of marketing technologies. "Pictures of cars are easier to communicate online."

Looking For Flexibility
Alamo anticipates that doing business on the Internet will help it improve customer relations because of increased flexibility and interactivity. The company expects it will find that Net transactions will be more flexible than other kinds of commerce, says Suomu. In a typical car reservation transaction, the customer must call in during business h ours, hear a description of the car over the phone, and then make a decision to rent or not. On the Net, however, the customer will have access to more in-depth information. That information will be available 24 hours a day. And the potential renter will be able to see what he or she is renting.

Alamo plans to make available information about seating and storage, the kinds of door-locks cars have, performance information such as braking, as well as more basic pricing and availability.

"This content will be available to anyone," says Suomu. "It will be beneficial to our customers now, and it will help build goodwill for future customers. People will be able to look at information and enjoy it. Hopefully we'll have them as customers later."

That's a similar strategy to one followed by Alamo in giving out travel directions--major Alamo rental desks in airports have kiosks where a passersby can select a destination and receive printed out driving directions. The kiosks are located near Alamo car -rental booths but not inside them. So they're available to anyone.

It was last September when Alamo decided to increase customer interaction by opening a sophisticated Net storefront . "You need to look at the explosion of subscribers for all online interactions," Suomo says. The company also signed a contract with CompuServe to open an electronic storefront on that on-line service.

Name Recognition
One of the main challenges to doing business on the Internet for most companies is name-recognition, says Mark Richtermeyer, general manager of the online division for Customer Communications Group, a marketing communications company in Denver. CCG set up the Internet site for Alamo. "The customer has to perceive credibility," says Richtermeyer. "No one knows who you are on the Internet, so it's nice when you have a company like Alamo. The name lends a lot of credibility."

Alamo is the third largest car rental firm in the U.S., serving close to 15 million travellers annual ly through 118 locations in the U.S., and 83 locations abroad. There are foreign agencies in the United Kingdon, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, and Greece. Revenues in 1994 were $1.275 billion.

To create the Net site, Alamo turned to CCG, a company with which it had worked for four years. CCG helped Alamo with its frequent renter program and and travel agent network. "They were getting involved with online services," recalls Suomo. "When we found that out we thought it was the perfect opportunity to expand the relationship." CCG is an 18-year-old company, with about 30 employees and $3 million revenue. Its clients include Chase Manhattan, Lazarus Federated Department Stores, Macy's, and Glendale Federal Bank.

Early Adopter
CCG was an early adopter of Internet technology. Company founder John Klug had a family member ill with a rare disease, and a friend referred him to the Internet as a source of possible additional information. Klug pos ted an inquiry to Usenet and found two specialists, one in Moscow and another in England. The English specialist saved the relative's life--and Klug began became interested in the Internet and online services as communications and marketing tools.

For the Alamo project, CCG delegated technical details to a local developer, XOR Network Engineering in Boulder, Colo. "We do the project managent," says Richtermeyer. CCG delegates the housing and running of the server to local experts. XOR had experience setting up Net servers, including Internet access providers such as the Colorado SuperNet and XOR's own Internet Plaza.

The Web server for the Alamo system also is located in Boulder, and is connected to Alamo's AS/400 corporate information system over leased lines. The server can be access by any graphical browser that supports forms, such as Netscape or Mosaic. Potential customers can also use text-based browsers, but less effectively, says CCG's Richtermeyer.

Almost everything on the Alamo's Web site is open to any Internet user, although there is one password-protected section available only to travel agents.

A Technology Mix
The technology used to run the Web site is a mix of off-the-shelf hardware and software, as well as code custom written by XOR and Alamo. The Web server is a 90 MHz Pentium PC running BSDI's Unix workalike operating system. It has a T1 connection to the Colorado Internet Cooperative Association. The Web software is the HTTP-D server from the National Center for Supercomputer Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. The BSDI machine hooks up to a 486 PC running OS/2 and IBM's SNA software. That, in turn, is connected to a leased-line network that Alamo maintains nationwide for reservation systems. The custom-developed software on the BSDI machine runs forums and reservations processing, says XOR president Herbe Morrealle.

Suomo is not overly concerned about security. Alamo custom ers don't give credit-card numbers or other financial information out on the web. In that respect, reserving a car over the Net can be set up similarly to how it is done by conventional means. The customer calls in, reserves the car, gets a confirmation number, and later on brings in a credit card.

Nonetheless, Alamo still wants to protect its data. The company declined to discuss its security arrangements, so as not to give pirates clues on how to break in. "To date, there haven't been that many thefts of credit cards out there," says Suomo. "There's software to secure transactions. I think the media has hyped this up."

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