BSM
Its commonly reconised now that the blogosphere can make or a break a company. Gone are the days of the only people that only know of your gripes being the regulars down your local. The most famed example was when Dell got a slaughtering on a few peoples blogs to such an extent they made serious changes to their Customer Service structure.
As HUOL grows in popularily our influence grows with it so don’t take what I say next lightly.
The British School of Motoring have demonstrated apauling levels of professionalism and customer service to me in the last 2 days.
I had a driving lesson booked on Bank Holiday Monday, a lesson appointment which I had verified twice. No instructor turned on Monday and there was, of course, no one in the office to query.
I gave them a call first thing this morning to find out what had happened and was told in a very matter-of-fact way that the instructor was on holiday last week so couldn’t pick his appointments up for Monday when he got back as the office was shut over the weekend. When I asked why they had booked appointments he wouldn’t know he had, all I was told is that they had a text messaging service which perhaps didn’t reach him. Great.
I demanded some sort of compenstation and explained how I was seriously considering taking my custom elsewhere, but dispite charging £23.25 an hour they couldn’t even afford to give me 10% off my next (and first ongoing) lesson. To their credit, they did book me in for tomorrow evening at less than 48 hours notice, the least they could do.
I’m going to approach the instructor tomorrow with an open mind, but he will no doubt face a grilling as to what has happened. I am largely sure on it being an office cockup, as I have had dealings with this BSM office before, but I will still push for some money off. Its difficult to be pushy though without damaging any potential rapport I would like to build with a potential instructor, but I will let you know how I get on tomorrow.
May 30th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
“Illegitimus non carborundum” - don’t let the bastards grind you down!
May 30th, 2006 at 11:30 pm
“Cognito Nil Sodomy Est” - Buggered if I know.
They’re up to £23.25 an hour! FFS! It was £16 per hour (must book in two hour slots) when I was doing it.
I need to think about a career change… well, I already am thinking about that but maybe I should think about driving!
Give ‘em hell, Chris.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:36 pm
The BSM is possibly the best known driving school out there. Have a search on the ‘Net (Though make sure you don’t accidentally add a ‘D’ after the ‘B’ like I did..) and you’ll find some mixed-bag results. Some say they rock, others flame them like a rib-eye steak. But, I will say this; any company that has the largest proportion of the market share is going to be screwing you in one way or another. Consider the BSM to be the Microsoft or BP of the driving school world and you have a fair comparison.
“We are the market leaders, we can do no wrong.”
I agree, they have indeed demonstrated appauling customer service and support but here is the thing - they won’t give two hoots. They’ll probably get some brown-nosed sycophant to suck up to you if you make a formal complaint but the chance of getting any form of recompense is slimmer than my chance of a payrise this century. As long as the shareholders are happy, they are happy.
As a personal recommendation, the Rushden School of Motoring did me proud. Not once did they fail me in any way (I did all the failing myself! Hurrah!) so perhaps you could give ‘em a shot. They might be a local company, but they are professional. At least, they *were*.. I assume they still are.
In summary, BSM gets the flick-off from me. Go eat your own sludge-covered tires, you cash plundering diesel-drinkers! ^_^
May 31st, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Right then, instructor is a really nice guy (Oakley wearing Biker dude, looks like he could enjoy extreme sports in his spare time) and gave a completly plausable explaination for the lack of show on Monday. Aparently, standard procedure is a call and a text for each new student, but “Mark” swears that didn’t happen. I beleive it.
I’m back slightly earlier than expected, this instructor thinks two hours is too long and one hour is too short. So he goes for an hour and a half, and gives a special rate for it too. So far so good, their men on the shop floor have pulled it out for them.
The general critique of my driving is good. Confident, perhaps over confident. Mirrors a problem - which I already knew. The problem is I don’t use them enough, so I’ve stuffed myself into the habbit of gorping left and right everytime I think about tilting the steering wheel.
Picked up a couple of times on palming the steering wheel, and ‘leaving it in gear a bit too long’ (read ‘ragging it’) when coming onto the A45.
Instructors suggestion: book a test tomorrow. Brilliant!
June 2nd, 2006 at 8:56 am
“read: ragging it”
:-) I remember being told to “apply a bit more gas when coming off roundabouts”. I interpreted this as “power out of corner” and was met with the comment “you’re not David Coulthard…”
There’s no pleasing some people!