Eldan calling...

Out of fairness I want to provide a follow-up to the post I wrote a couple of days ago about a small geography problem plaguing Eldan (Israel's largest rental car agency).  If you didn't read it, you can go here for the back-story.

If you can't be bothered or are short on time, in a nutshell the problem stemmed from an ad campaign created by (or for) Eldan entitled "Nobody knows Israel like Eldan"... a slogan that appearssomewhat ludicrous when superimposed over a map of Israel with its borders incorrectly drawn (picture an ad featuring the outline of the continental US.... minus Florida).  Specifically, they left off the entire Golan Heights, a huge parcel of land measuring 1200 square kilometers (460 square miles), that was effectively annexed by Israel in 1981 with the passage of the Golan Heights Law.

I was bothered enough by the ad that I called up the Eldan management's office in Tel Aviv and had some fun with some of their staff (i.e. made a complete pest of myself).  Once I had sort of shamed them into taking a good look at the map in their ads, they agreed that there was indeed a problem and promised to take care of it.

But to be honest, I had my doubts as to whether they would take my complaint seriously.

Yesterday afternoon my cell phone rang and I found myself speaking with a member of Eldan's senior management.  She thanked me for bringing the problem to their attention and apologized profusely for the error.  She also informed me that they had pulled the offending ads from all websites where they had been running (including their own) and had ordered an internal investigation into how their ad department had approved and released the campaign without anybody noticing such a mistake (she actually used the word 'fashla'... a strong word usually reserved for really big screw-ups).

True to their word, by the time I got home yesterday, there wasn't an Eldan banner ad to be seen anywhere.... even on their own web site. 

It's kind of incredible what a phone call can do.  Think about it... how many times have you seen something that was just plain wrong, but couldn't be bothered to follow up in order to bring the problem to the attention of someone in a position to actually make it right?

So yeah... while it may have been my phone call that got the ball rolling, I'd just like to take this opportunity to compliment Eldan's handling of this unfortunate incident.  I was completely prepared for them to blow me off with a typically Israeli "Al Tida'ag" (don't worry); "Lo Kara Kloom' (Nothing happened), or "Smoch Alai... nitapel b'zeh" (trust me, we'll take care of it)... followed by them completely ignoring me until the end of the ad's scheduled run. 

But when faced with an embarrassing error, Edan stepped up with good humor, a prompt investigation and a polite follow-up call to inform me of the steps they'd taken to deal with the problem.

I may have to adjust my expectations in terms of what constitutes 'typical Israeli' behavior.

Kol HaKavod, Eldan!