Measuring customer care

What do customers expect when they enter into a contract with a driving school?  I would guess that many customers would talk about feeling safe, being treated with care, and dignity in a respectful and constructive working environment.  They expect driving instructors to turn up on time, not cancel sessions, complete work for the entire time of the session, help them to pass the driving test.

The DVSA have a Code of Practice. One of the driving associations, the DIA, have a code of conduct which, interestingly does not mention the words 'safe' or 'safety' or 'respect' once.  And this highlights the reason for this blog.  How should any regulator measure customer care?  If our regulating bodies vacillate about how driving instructors should behave then confusion follows.

Followers of this blog will have noted my tendency to mention OFSTED and their role in the monitoring of education.  But the 'market forces' within the field of providing state education do not match up to those providers of training in a private arrangement such as ours.  A comparable provision is that offered by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) when they assess the service of private care homes.

Their Chief Inspector Andrea Sutcliffe is due to move on at the end of 2018 having done the job for five years.  Look at how they describe what they do as an organisation: "We make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve."  The website continues, "We monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and we publish what we find, including performance ratings to help people choose care."

All of this is sounding very good, sensible, and one might even find reassurance in these words.  But the reality of the situation is very different as there are severe doubts about the findings of their assessments.  A friend of mine has been attending his wife's care home every day, three times a day because he fears for the level of care she would receive if he did not attend.  He is talking here about treating people with dignity, respect, providing a level of service that any reasonable person would consider the necessary standards of human decency such as hygiene, comfort, nutrition and hydration, social engagement.

At over a £1000 per week, it quickly becomes a sobering reality that the exorbitant fees do not guarantee very much, and worst still, the CQC grades change like the wind and do not reflect reality.  There are serious concerns about the integrity of the assessment.  A CQC inspection typically involves a day or two review every two years.  Contrast that with a DVSA standards check which usually requires a 45-minute in-car review every 4-6 years.

Much like my sad friend, relatives of residents will tend to understate their deeply held concerns because quite literally, there is no better alternative available.  If it wasn't so dangerous, it could almost be comical that care home staff, residents and their relatives are all busily deceiving the CQC of just how dire the situation is.  Hold the response to my histrionic claims, until you have at least witnessed the case for yourself.

How schools organise the learning within it is primarily dictated by how the government of the day views what education means to students.  To only focus on academic ability inhibits how our younger generation flourishes.  What our youngsters offer society is a resource of diverse capacities, just waiting to be discovered and developed.  Instead, students enter this arena where teachers are piling on pressures and expectations of academic achievement just so that OFSTED can give a favourable assessment.  Parents, teachers, heads, governing bodies, teaching assistants all know that what is happening is neglectful, cruel and deeply unsatisfactory to many students.  

As it stands, the public does not place as much emphasis on standards check grades of driving instructors as they do OFSTED ratings of schools.  The DVSA keep threatening to change this; they do not understand how to measure customer care accurately.  If they did, they would realise that a good start would be to seriously listen to the thoughts and feelings of pupils after a standards check.  But they choose not to do that.  For some reason, they believe that a DVSA examiner can assess a pupil's feelings about progress, safety, satisfaction far better than asking a pupil. I do not mean fatuous questions directed to the pupil at the end of the standards check — instead, a proper 'interview' aimed at understanding the pupil's honest opinion of the professionalism of the driving instructor.  Objectively review the safety record of the driving instructor.  Doing these things is possible.