Fear flowing through an organisation

A few days ago I blogged on how organisations create hostility as a result of operating in fear and how this often stems from the culture in which the personnel operate.  Let me offer you an actual incident yesterday that demonstrates this point entirely.

At around 8.30am I was on my way to a customers house as she had a 10.14hrs driving test at Grantham.  She had undertaken a 20-hour weekend intensive course over the last few weekends.  Part of the £1074 fee includes a test booking service aligned to her course.  Not all pupils are authorised for taking a test when they complete their 20 hours, but this customer was, and she had been provided with a driving test just two days after her course was completed.

Included in the course price is 2 hours use of the driving school car for test day purposes and I had left nice and early (perhaps 30 mins earlier than needed) as I wanted to ensure my customer was settled before her test.

No more than 5 minutes into the journey, the DVSA ring me, and a lady by the name of Carol informs me that my customer's test has been cancelled and I will be provided with an alternative test date imminently.  

When I enquired as to whether Carol would be prepared to ring my customer herself to deliver this message and perhaps do the customer the courtesy of explaining why it had happened I found myself on the tail end of a torrent of verbal abuse as to how unacceptable my behaviour was to personalise this towards Carol.  After explaining that my comments to Carol were directed towards her in her capacity as representing the DVSA, she informed me that last minute cancellations were not an uncommon occurrence; she was simply doing her job.

Everything had been attempted to ensure my customer's test happened and the only reason why it was not happening related to an issue with an examiner rather than any other logistical problem.  

Carol rang me 20 minutes later to say she had relayed the cancellation message to the mobile answering phone of my customer, and she offered me an alternative test 3 days later which neither my customer nor I could manage.  Carol's work is done.  Off she goes to the next calamity.

I get hold of the DVSA twitter help desk and speak with Louise.  She informs me that my customer can claim compensation relating to loss of earnings for this cancellation and also fee's incurred from the use of the driving school car, but not test booking fees.  I tried to enlighten Louise as to why members of the public are paying organisations like mine to provide a paid for service to arrange test bookings but as far as the DVSA are concerned, my customer can freely use the online booking service and so she now has to do precisely that- regardless of how useless it is. 

So to be clear, unless I now take the hit on providing this service free of charge, the DVSA are insisting that my customer has to engage in their cumbersome booking service, to obtain a suitable test date because they have cancelled her test with less than 2 hours notice.   

Spread the love people, spread the love.

Look at this from the view of my customer.  I dare say she will not have slept well the night before her driving test.  Excitedly nervous perhaps.  Feeling quietly confident; her course went well, her test is only two days after the completion of her course.  Everything is aligned correctly, but you could not blame her for feeling nerves the night before and in the morning.  Through no fault of her own, she is informed at 08.45hrs that her test at 10.14hrs  has been cancelled - she is not even told why.  The alternative date that she is offered is not suitable for her, and so she is provided with a default test date/time.  It is now for HER to tirelessly engage in the booking system to find an alternative date that suits her and her instructor.  As if this were not bad enough she then has to pay her instructor a further £60 for 2 hours use of the driving school car on the new test date and engage with the DVSA compensation procedure to claim back this fee.  

Can you imagine how she must be feeling?

The alternative is that the burden of responsibility for the DVSA's incompetence to provide a professional, reliable public service is transferred over to the driving instructor.  Let the driving instructor sort out this mess they have caused.  He/she can shoulder the loss of earnings for the cancelled test; they can also spend hours on the booking service to get a reasonable alternative test date.  

I often hear from the DVSA and driving instructor training organisations how they expect driving instructors to act more professionally and with integrity.  Stop projecting and start reflecting would be my advice.

Being affected by the incompetence of the DVSA is bad enough, but having personnel within the organisation being indignant to driving instructors when they feel fear is something entirely different.

The 'improving customer service' train has been chugging along for several years, and the DVSA is not on it.  It would appear that providing driving standards for the industry is more natural to achieve for the DVSA than a reliable, competent, practical driving test operation.  But those two services are incompatible, and personnel find it hard to reconcile.  Delivering driving standards requires entirely different skill sets and values to those of a practical driving test provider.  Forcing your employees to operate within a culture of fear due to incompetence creates hostility that is not acceptable to customers or even the employees, and the DVSA has a responsibility to acknowledge that fact and deal with it.  The only reason that this problem exists is the very fact that the DVSA is not operating in a private, commercial, profit-making entity. If the DVSA service that provides a public service for practical driving tests were serving in a private setting with competition, they would not survive with their level of incompetence and customer service.  

Are they entirely unaccountable?  Is anyone holding the DVSA to account for the amount of last-minute driving test cancellations that are occurring across the UK?