It’s time the industry spoke out.

In his second interview with Steve Jordan for The Mover, newly elected BAR Board member Matt Faizey gives his opinion on standards in the industry and how to improve them.

When I first interviewed Matt Faizey five years ago he was unimpressed with the inspection criteria for membership of the UK’s trade associations. He felt that it was all just a case of box ticking with little relevance to the quality of the work the customer received.  Five years on, and with the expansion of the industry-related BS standards, his opinions haven’t changed much. 

His problem is that he feels the current inspection procedures are too focussed on how you run the business not on what happens at the customers’ houses.  “I would be happy to sign a consent form allowing any inspector to turn up at any time during the working day to inspect my premises and vehicles and to speak to any customer I have moved in the last month,” he said. “They should also be allowed to go out to any move going on that day and inspect the workmanship, actually seeing the company in action. I’d love to see that.”

He added, “We had an inspection here recently. I asked the inspector ‘Do you now have any clue whether we are a good firm of removers or not?’ The inspector said that they didn’t, but they had ticked all the boxes.”  What Matt would like to see is inspections that assess everything that the customers receive. “We tend to lose sight of what people want. The public don’t care about ‘O’ licences, they do not care about BS EN numbers, nor ISO for that matter, they want to know that the back of the vehicle is clean, that their goods will be looked after, that the equipment is fit for purpose and that the crew will be well mannered, polite and courteous. They want to see images of the company, and to feel confident in the assessor that came to see them. They want a company that thoroughly understands the process of moving home.”

Matt acknowledges that running field officers is expensive but believes that companies would be prepared to pay the cost if they knew that they were getting a thorough inspection. “How much more would members pay if they new they were going to get that service? What price are you going to put on the increase in standing of the Association among its membership>”

It wasn’t long ago (earlier this year) that BAR held a referendum of its members to establish whether they would accept compulsory Standards as a membership criteria.  The idea was rejected.  Although Matt wants tougher standards he’s not surprised that the vote didn’t go through. “It failed because to ask companies that have been through the worst trading period in their history to stump up between £500 and £900 a year for something they cannot sell to the public, and that has zero recognition by Mrs Smith in Acacia Avenue, was always going to build resentment. But if you make the Standard really mean something to the public, then make it compulsory, I think most people would go along with it. Even if to be a member of BAR in itself is the standard, however, only on the basis that the public know what BAR even is.”

Matt says that it’s the BAR badge, not BS EN standards or kite marks, that should be the symbol of excellence. “I believe that’s what the majority of the membership want to see. However, it seems many forget that the judge of this isn’t the members, nor the Board or Director General, but our customers.”

He does, however, acknowledge that there is a fundamental problem. He believes that he knows what the majority of the moving industry in the UK would like … but he doesn’t know for sure.  He doesn’t know because the majority of the industry chooses not to be vocal. “This is not a criticism of BAR it’s a criticism of the industry. BAR has all the mechanisms in place for members to make the changes they would like to see.  But apathy is a serious problem. Since joining the BAR Board I am now more scared that the membership will continue to sit back and blame the Association without telling it what they want.” Of course, it’s very rare for the membership of any organisation to know what it wants, much less to voice it.

“I really want to know what people think. I want to know if I’m a lone voice; am I the ‘blue goldfish’? I wish it was a shared effort with people calling for what they want but it isn’t. I think the reason is the small companies are concentrating on making ends meet so the only voices you hear are those of people in positions that affords them the time to do it – i.e. those at the top of removal companies with seven figure turnovers. You then get a very skewed set of opinions. That seriously compounds the problem. But if the big companies are the only ones making noise it’s not fair to accuse BAR of only listening to them.”

In the last five years Matt hasn’t lost any of his passion. In fact, he possibly feels it even stronger now because time has passed and he feels little has changed. “People in the industry seem to walk around with their heads in the sand. They don’t voice their opinions. I can argue for what I think is right but I don’t know if anyone agrees with me. It’s very frustrating.”

Matt has only been on the BAR Board for a few months but already he feels that it is the membership and the industry at large that needs to make its opinions felt.  It’s not that BAR isn’t listening; it’s the industry that’s not saying anything.

“And as much as people might get fed up with seeing or hearing me, at least I’m using my voice, it’d be a pleasure if ever I were to find I was one of many,” Matt said, with sadness, sincerity and just a hint of the anger that this editor knows for certain still exists.

Comment from Chris Waymouth, Chief Executive, Quality Service Standards Ltd.

Matt is not alone in suggesting that the removals quality standards should be made “tougher” and should be more relevant in terms of measuring real performance and service delivery and less of a ticklist exercise against the technical requirements of the Standard. 

As the principal certification company for the industry, QSS very much supports a move in this direction. However, it must be remembered that we ourselves do not set the standards or their contents – in the case of the most widely held removals standard (BS EN 12522 for domestic removals) this is a European standard whose contents are determined by no less than 30-odd national standards organizations from all across Europe (the counterparts of BSI in the UK).

Each Standard comes up for review every 5 years, and in 2011 it was the turn of BS EN 12522. Through BSI, QSS put forward a number of comments and suggestions for improvement but unfortunately we were a lone voice and the decision was made by CEN (the European consortium) to leave it in its present form.  This was particularly frustrating as we in the UK have by far the greatest number of certifications to this Standard and it would have been good to think our views would have counted. But sadly not.

Despite this – or perhaps because of this, we are currently engaged in a review of our own methods of auditing and assessing movers’ performance as we believe, as do Matt and a number of others in the industry, that the process could be made much more meaningful as a true measurement of quality service. I would really welcome all suggestions – please contact me at chris.waymouth@bar.co.uk or on 01923 699480.