I'm Frederico. I'm currently the Station Manager at Lisbon Airport. At the beginning of the day I need to know what the day's going to bring. I begin by knowing how many reservations I have, how many cars I have. It involves a lot of careful planning and preparing. I also have to give the main points to the staff for them to know what they will face during the day, and to help them get through the day in the best way possible.
I think every day is unusual, because you're dealing with lots of customers, lots of cultures. So each customer has their own unique character — all of them are unusual, [laughs] so I think if I were to describe a day I'd say they were all unusual. That's why it's so challenging and so motivating to work for this company.
I've been with Avis Budget Group for 10 years now. I began as a Licensing Manager, and held that position for seven years. But then it became time to embrace a new challenge, a very big challenge - To move into Operations and to manage a really big station like Lisbon Airport.
Every day is a challenge, but also an opportunity, so it's really a great place to work. I have quite a big team with some experienced people, and some newcomers. I'm really proud of them and we are a very tight team. We have to work closely, so it's important to have a great team spirit for the team to work, because we need and must rely on one another.
I had help from my superiors. It's a relationship based on trust. He's a very experienced person within the business and Operations. I've been learning a lot from him with his judgement on the daily tasks we have, and how to deal with situations that happen throughout the day, so it's a very good relationship. I've learnt a lot from him.
It's part of the process of learning to get every Rental Sales Agent to the car park. You don't have to love cars, but you need to know cars. It's fundamental that you know what you are selling. So you have to know what the features of each car are in order to recommend the best vehicle to the customer.
In Avis Budget Group we are proud to say we are the best. We try harder every day to give the best customer service. This is the difference between us and our competitors. I think it's the thing that defines Avis Budget Group at the moment.