How not to run a coach company

Here are some suggestions for you, if you are considering setting up business as a coach company:

• Don't sell more tickets than you have seats.
• Don't bake your passengers with excessive heating (outward journey) or freeze them by leaving a sunroof open that is inoperable by the passengers on an overnight journey from Scotland (return journey).
• Don't whinge about being overwhelmed with passengers when your main route is between Edinburgh and London and it's the English bank holiday and the Edinburgh Festival. It's not an inconvenience, it's a business opportunity.
• Don't be rude to your passengers. They are paying for a service - you're not doing them a favour.
• Don't spend the first hour of the outward journey leaving Victoria Coach Station, driving round the block, and then returning to where you started. Four times. If you really must, at least explain to the passengers what on earth is going on. And don't get narky with them when they become fractious due to lack of information. Particularly if you've been slow-roasting them during this period (see point 2).
• If you arrive two hours late at your destination, it might be nice to offer passengers some kind of explanation/apology.
• If your overbooking means you have to ask passengers to board an extra coach which will require them to change partway through the journey, perhaps a 'please' or a 'sorry' might be nice. If you then have to reverse the decision, try asking nicely. Declaring: "Right, we need six of you to go back on the other coach. You two, get your bags and get over there." doesn't really say Excellent Customer Service.
• If your drivers look so harranged that they are actually grey (and I'm not just talking hair-wise), perhaps your management is so poor that it's having a negative impact on your staff.

Only suggestions, mind. And if you're Silver Choice Coaches, feel free to ignore the above advice.