What is the key to being a successful coach operator?
You certainly need a good business brain. A grasp of HR matters. Enough mechanical knowledge to avoid others pulling the wool over your eyes. Being good with people is certainly useful, and I suppose that being able to drive a coach is quite handy, no matter how rarely you actually do so these days.
But I believe that the quality you need more than anything else is resilience. In the coach world, when accidents happen, vehicles break down, and customers expect you to wave a magic wand, you have to be able to suck it up and get things sorted so there are enough drivers and vehicles for the next day.
For our business, and I imagine for 90% of the people reading this, simply not turning up, or cancelling a job with four hours’ notice, is not an option. If you are a plumber or an electrician, you can push the task back a day. It happens all the time. Not in our world.
As I write, we have not long passed Friday 13 October. I am neither superstitious nor a drinker, but by 0200hrs on Saturday 14, I was nearly both.
It started at about 1600hrs on the Friday, when one of my newer coaches came back with half a wheel arch missing. The driver was not sure how it had happened. That was quickly followed by a call telling me that our six-month-old coach was outside the local fuel station and would not start.
At 1630hrs, another driver had reversed into a wall. When things could not get any worse, a call came from a main agent telling me that the tri-axle which was in for repair would not be ready for a tour departing the following morning, and needed moving 60 miles to another part of the dealer group.
Resilience: Without it, I could not have got through those two hours. I have many personality weaknesses (just ask my wife), but resilience and work ethic I have in abundance. So I did what had to be done.
We rescued the stricken vehicle. Made arrangements for bodywork to be done over the weekend. Got a coach that while not ideal but would do the job, and prepared it for the following day’s tour departure. I also convinced one of my mechanics to give up his Friday evening, and off we set 60 miles up the motorway… only for it to be closed because of a crash.
Two hours spent surrounded by HGVs, and missing your 14-year-old son’s cricket presentation, is not an ideal Friday evening. It also is not the best recipe for a happy wife. But you do what needs to be done.
As I got home at 0200hrs, I felt strangely better. We were ready to go again the next day, when by coincidence, a driver had a family emergency and could not take a swimming club to its gala. With everyone else either working or on scheduled rest, that was left to me as well. And I gave up doing that kind of thing years ago.
The point is that I know full well how this type of working life is not unique to me. Up and down the country, we all have the same issues. But in the main, we get on with it, and stay at work until things are sorted.
Resilience, you see. That is the key to being a successful coach operator. And in my case, and understanding wife!
