Terrible attitude towards customer service. They have a bad reputation for customer service and are unwilling to take feedback on board.
Dear Prentice Westwood,
I am writing to you to make a complaint following my booking of your services for a trip to Manchester. I am a member of the Heriot-Watt Chemical Engineering Society who booked your coach service on the 15th and 17th of February. I am utterly appalled by the sheer lack of professionalism which Mr Cowie (our coach driver) exhibited during this trip. His behaviour ruined the trip that we have worked very hard to fundraise for a year and I think it is a disgrace that Prentice Westwood would provide this kind of service to their customers.
Throughout the trip Mr Cowie maintained an abysmal attitude towards the members of the coach. This began right from the offset when Mr Cowie was extremely rude and disrespectful to the customers entering the coach, being overbearing and would even not allow passengers to shut the curtains to sleep on the bus (may I add this was a night service). Mr Cowie's unnecessary lack of respect very clearly upset a lot of members of the coach at the beginning of our trip, which set a bad tone for the members of the society who had paid to attend.
Mr. Cowie's attitude continued to escalate and he became increasingly more aggressive towards the end of the trip while we were boarding the coach for the journey home. A female student was onboard and was desperate to use the toilet and as the driver had locked the toilets I spoke to him on her behalf enquiring if it were possible for him to open them up. It seemed strange to myself that he would lock the toilets considering we had a 6 hour journey ahead of ourselves and it is very likely that someone would need to use them.
Mr Cowie rudely refused to open the toilets and explained that they should only be used in the event of an emergency. At this point I explained to him that I was very unhappy with his attitude towards the group and his customer service throughout the trip. He then escalated the situation and aggressively jumped out of his chair towards me and demanded that I vacate the bus or he would call the police. As I had only made a complaint to the driver, I refused to vacate the bus and welcomed his request to call the police. My fellow colleagues were also willing to leave the bus as his behaviour was aggressive and endangering to us all. I explained that I had only been acting on behalf of a female student who was in need of the toilet. In Mr Cowie's rage he refused to come to any solution with his customer and only seemed to care about maintaining a show of defiance. His irrational and unprofessional behaviour made me sceptical of his sobriety and thus lead me to become increasingly worried for my safety and that of my fellow students.
I eventually managed to reason with Mr Cowie and he allowed to me return to my seat. However, while returning to my seat he began to shout derogatory abuse such as "You are a disgrace to the youth of today" and "you are setting a bad example for your generation". I then think it dawned on Mr Cowie that it was not safe to have the toilets locked for the duration of the trip as in the event of an emergency it would result in the bus making unnecessary stops in inconvenient locations to allow for the toilets to be unlocked - which could take a considerable amount of time if an emergency had arose. While unlocking the toilets, I politely thanked Mr Cowie for seeing sense, to which he hurled a volley of unwanted and foul mouthed comments while drawing his key and stabbing them in the air in my direction. I hope that you can understand that with this type of threatening behaviour, I was extremely concerned for my own safety and that of my fellow passengers, however, the group were helpless to do anything as the coach was our only means of getting 230 miles home.
On arrival of our final destination I spoke to Mr Cowie once again, to inform him that I wished to proceed by filing a formal complaint to his employer regarding his professional conduct to his customers. Mr Cowie then refused to acknowledge that we were his customers and said that his customer was the University, as if this was some sort of excuse for his shocking behaviour. On the contrary, the buses are not booked through the University in any way, as we are only in affiliation with the university and so it is highly insulting to have our complaints dismissed because we 'are not the customer'. This attitude is absolutely shocking in my opinion." - my complaint to Prentice Westwood. read more
