AVOID LIME SKI SCHOOL LA PLAGNE is my advice

A snowHead

My partner had a bad experience with lime ski school in La Plagne today. The instructor didn't show up and it put a huge dampener on the first day of our holiday. We received an apology and an offer of a €10 reduction from the €120 price if we re-booked. We couldn't do the times offered so rejected the offer and voiced our disappointment. The response was mildly offensive and so we pointed this out. The reply to that was purely rude. They may well be good instructors (we'll never know) but I believe that I should show this side of the company to snowheads as it was forum advice on here that led to the booking. I would copy and paste the whole email thread but I am struggling to do so on my phone. I will post the emails once home next week.

[admin] Response from Lime below: http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=125094#2947911

A snowHead

On the face of it that sounds awful. An offer of such a tiny reduction on such an expensive lesson is derisory. Did they have any explanation?

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Thank you. Danni admitted that it was her fault for not booking it in properly. We all make mistakes, but as someone who manages a business that provides a service I know that I feel morally obliged to make amends if something goes wrong. In my business however, I can't affect someone's holiday.

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The offer does seem derisory for such a cockup and they really should have come up with something much better as a way of apologising.

I'll be interested to see the emails as I personally find professional people are rarely rude unless they feel under unwarranted pressure or have attempts at conciliation treated with contempt. I wonder if a phone call might have been a better way of handling this.

Whatever happens, I hope you enjoy your holiday and manage not to let this get under your skin.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

As a contrast, I'd booked a 2 hour private lesson with an instructor I know, for a very nervous friend, first morning. She couldn't get there. It was mid January and hugely snowy, the ski bus couldn't make it and I had broken my pelvis and couldn't drive. I rang the ski school and told them. They were very polite but explained that that was that. No lesson Fair enough. A while later she rang back. Stephane would do a lesson the following day, no charge. And it cost vastly less than the OP's lesson, too.

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@PeteSnow, yes...do post up the emails.

Given that their 'latest news' on their website is that '...winter 2015/16 is just around the corner...' suggests that they are not the most efficient people in the world.

I know that life is tough for ski schools - very low margins, complex handling of clients, a series of difficult seasons, highly weather-dependent - but p+++ing off clients is a VERY BAD IDEA....

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

As stated above: not good.
I'd never heard of Lime snows ports, advertised as "BRITISH SKI SCHOOL LA PLAGNE".
Is that why you chose them, PeteSnow? British?
The site suggests there are just 2 of them (possibly a "couple"?), Dani and Craig, who don't seem to want to show their faces: in goggles on the About Lime page, and Dani's eyes and forehead cut off on the Home Page.
And no "reviews" easily available.
Just goes to show: best stick with the tried and trusted.
I always recommend Reflex.

After all it is free

€390 for a day's private instruction Shocked

Is that the going rate? I'd want Graham Bell for that money!

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@jellylegs, I don't think that's a bad rate for a full day's work by a highly qualified professional. A lot less than you'd pay for, for example, a chartered accountant or a lawyer. Even cheap ones!

Quite a bargain compared to what I paid a very ordinary mechanic in my Vauxhall dealer.....

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@jellylegs, It is Sfr400 for a 5 hour day with private instructor in Saas-Fee, and Sfr600 for an off piste mountain guide. The rates are set by the Ski Schools not the instructors. The ones I know say they made less money when rates went from Sfr300 to Sfr400 over a couple of years, as less people were taking days with them.

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@PowderAdict, is that with a guaranteed full-cert instructor?

You know it makes sense.

Hi,
this is Dani from Lime Snowsports and I just wanted to clarify a few details regarding this post.
Emma booked via email and all booking and payment details were sent, our booking policy is all lessons have to be fully paid for before arrival in resort. We then received an email from her stating 'I am having trouble paying with my online banking.' As the lesson date was very close I agreed she could pay on the day - this is where the error occurred on MY part as it did not go onto our lesson planning this had to be manually done totally my fault!.
I put my hands up and apologised this was the email I sent to Emma as soon as I knew there was a problem

'HI Emma
I am SO SO SO sorry about today - it is completely my fault and an error with our planning. Craig rang you this afternoon to try and re-schedule, he spoke to your partner.
If you do wish to take the lesson slot tomorrow at 2.30pm to 4.30pm we can offer this at a reduced rate of 110 Euros.
Please let me know this evening if you would like to take tomorrows lesson.
Please accept my sincere apologies.
Dani

At this this point no money had ever changed hands, I totally understand that Emma had been waiting but Craig had rung her a number of times on the contact information given. Craig was available to take start this lesson around 30 mins late. Please find the correspondence below -

Emma's reply to my email -
Hi,
I am really disappointed and pretty upset. I feel like I've missed the first day of my holiday as I waited for my lesson and after waiting for 40 minutes I was absolutely freezing and gave up!
Although I do really want a lesson i don't want to miss out on skiing with my family again who have been heading quite far so I wouldn't get back in time. And it makes a very expensive day and half with no skiing especially as I've paid for a lift pass.
Once again, I'm so disappointed! Especially as I picked you from the reviews online.
Emma

Once I received this email I was upset to be accused as the cause of Emma choosing not to ski out side of a one off afternoon ski lesson. In her first email she stated her level as 'I can parallel turn, but I think my technique needs working on!' the ski area in La Plagne has lots of lovely ski runs that a parallel skier can practice on.

My reply to Emma was -
Hi Emma
I am very sorry you feel this way and like I have said in my earlier email I am extremely sorry, I am afraid I am not perfect and mistakes do happen - I am afraid this is the first time in 3 years of lime that a mistake has been made.

For your information Craig called you at 1455 and left you a message, he then continued to call for another half an hour. If you had answered your phone we could have carried out the lesson today with a half an hour delay.

Your morning ski plans are completely outside our control and for you to say you have missed the first day of your holiday is slightly exaggerated. You choosing not to ski in the morning was entirely your choice, nothing to do with us at Lime Snowsports.

The reason your lesson was not on the planning and a mistake was made, was because you stated you were having trouble doing a bank transfer (most of our Clients pay by bank transfer and don't seem to have a problem) please also note you had the option to pay by card. You then emailed and asked if you could pay cash on the day (something we very rarely allow as payment is needed in full before the lesson (please see our terms and conditions) hence the lesson was not automatically put on the planning, this had to be done manually- my mistake.

We have offered to re- schedule your lesson at a further discount which you have chosen not to take. We also could had started your lesson approx half an hour late today had you been contactable.
Once again I am very sorry.
I hope you have a great holiday
Dani

This was Emma's reply -
Hi Danni
Your first paragraph reads well and shows the kind of apology required however, 'for your information' the rest of your email shows that it was not at all genuine.
Unfortunately the first missed call I received was at 15:19, I would gladly have started half hour late. There was a voicemail left at 14:56 that I regrettably didn't realise I had received until the one time my phone did ring.
Indeed the reason I didn't ski in the morning was out of your control. However, non the less as I planned the day around the time of my booked lesson I still feel that I have missed my first days skiing down to you. To say that I am exaggerating is plain rude.
To be honest, I don't really mind how many people pay you by whatever method. You accepted the booking with payment to be given on the day. Suggesting that I could have paid by card instead is again pointing out how genuine you are not being.
Mistakes happen. I certainly know this but it is how you handle a mistake that shows how good your customer service is. A heartfelt apology would have left me satisfied. Your colleague Craig was very good on the phone according to my partner, perhaps you could take pointers from him. The only reason we didn't sign up to another lesson with him is due to the fact that he didn't have a slot tomorrow morning.
My experience with you and your company has not been a good one. Perhaps I seem to be still exaggerating to you but with all of the planning that goes into my holiday which I work hard for it is upsetting.
Emma.

My reply to Emma -

Hi Emma,

Many thanks for your comments.
The first email that you received from me this evening was expressing my sincere apologies......

I am SO SO SO sorry about today - it is completely my fault and an error with our planning.
Craig rang you this afternoon to try and re-schedule, he spoke to your partner.
If you do wish to take the lesson slot tomorrow at 2.30pm to 4.30pm we can offer this at a reduced rate of 110 Euros.
Please let me know this evening if you would like to take tomorrows lesson.
Please accept my sincere apologies.
Dani

You stated in your last email 'A heartfelt apology would have left me satisfied.' This is was the reason for my first email. I only responded to your questionable remarks and stated the facts.
I am very sorry this does not sit well with you. There is nothing more I can do and I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.
Dani

To sum it all up it was totally may fault Emma's lesson was not on our planning however we did every thing we could to start the lessons 30/40 mins late. At no point had any moneys been paid and at no point did we ever manage to speak to Emma.
I am sincerely sorry and have always been for the mistake made on my part.

I hope this clarifies a few things.

Dani - www.limesnowsports.com

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Limesnowsports, welcome to snowheads and always good to hear both sides of the story.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Hmm very interesting to get the other side of the story. To be honest this peanut gallery is coming down on the side of Lime given PeteSnow's partner's seeming inability to use her own phone ( I know reception is not always reliable etc etc) and shirty tone (perhaps this after his initial rant intending to damage the business is why he didn't cough up the correspondence trail). Seems to me professionally and appropriately handled by them and to be blamed for missing a day's skiing stretches credibility.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I can tell @Dave of the Marmottes, that the mobile phone coverage is first class in La Plagne - you have to be far from the beaten track before it becomes patchy. Lime is a small School and so they probably have less capability to cover a cock-up. Should this have occurred with Oxygene then you would have been able to go to the office and they would have sorted something out.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Interesting how not all of the facts were given by the OP. Always two sides to a story. I think the fact the OP hadn't paid anything up front doesn't really give them much in way of a bargaining tool!!!

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@Limesnowsports +1 props!!!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

PeteSnow's partner comes out as looking a bit wet frankly.

After all it is free

I'd disagree, arguing with your customers is never a good idea and this:

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I have to lean towards limesnow in this instance and feel the thread heading very harsh, payment had not been made and Dani apologised, its very difficult to express deep sorrow over an e.mail as they can be read incorrectly... Only really works if you know them personally i think... But its Just my opinion

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WELL DONE LIME!!

In my view, you were MORE than accommodating in honouring the booking despite lack of payment.

The bit that strikes me is, was the OP planning on paying the instructor in cash at the bottom of the slope rather than visiting their office to pay in advance??!! If so Lime were even more accommodating.

Im sorry, but anyone who says they can't do a bank transfer or do card payment is talking tosh!! More like they didn't have the money at the time of booking OR didn't want to pay the usual £25 uk to euro bank transfer rate that most of us get hit with.

I don't know of many ski schools or accommodations in europe that will allow you to pay on arrival - they would simply cancel your booking!!!

@PaulC1984, Most the ski schools I know of in Austria would expect payment at arrival to the office on the day of the first lesson.

'Sole trader' type of 'schools' would expect cash on arrival for the lesson or pre-payment/deposit.

My big question.... Did Emma actually exist???....

You know it makes sense.

As it happens, we used Lime in March of this year for lessons for my wife. I found them professional and courteous, plus my wife was very pleased with her lessons with Craig - he took the time to understand what she was after and then delivered. Now clearly we did not have problems and so I have no experience of Lime in a less perfect situation, but I would be more than happy to book with them again.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

Payment in full at time of booking, with the ski schools I use.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

While I think the OP was playing to the gallery a tad, I also think a 10€ reduction was a little short of the mark if the ski school was serious about converting bad-will back to good.
After all, what is your time worth? OK, now what's it worth on a ski day? I personally have spent much of a weekend making arrangements to give myself an extra hour or two skiing on arrival day.
While the client has rather exaggerated with the 'day and a half' claim, it is fair to say that turning up for a lesson and waiting half an hour or so for it not to happen, wastes significantly more than half an hour of that client's time. So, when offering compensation, the school would have been wise to take that into account.
IMHO 10€ off a rescheduled lesson just ain't gonna cut it when you've just lost the faith of the client.
In the client's position, I'd have been saying "Sod that, I'd rather pay more to use a place that acknowledges the value of my time."

Now, had the offer been, "To show you how sorry we are and convince you to give us another chance, we'd like to offer you a lesson tomorrow at half price." I think that might have garnered a little goodwill - whether the client took up the offer or not. They might have even gone for a cheeky up-sell, "...and should we regain your confidence as we hope we will, any further lessons for you or your family this week will be discounted by 10€."

Ski school fails - (but owns it:kudos)
Customer wastes 'valuable holiday time' and has a bit of a flounceo.
Ski school under-compensates and email flounscalation occurs.

Potentially a valuable customer service lesson I think.

Long ago on snowHeads, NewGen got slagged off by someone, much to everybody's surprise as their rep was hot at the time.
IIRC, one of the NewGen directors turned up, gathered more detail about the complaint and offered to personally address the complainant's issues the next time he was in Courchevel.
The praise heaped on NewGen by this newly converted critic was worth, in PR/marketing terms, 10 x the value of that director's time.

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@x7, Once again i'm saddened that snowHead becomes a tool to slag off a company and that company doesn't have a chance to defend itself until the whining on snowHeads is brought to it's attention - in this case after the complaint has been aired for 7 months !
I wonder how much potential business has been lost by allowing the one side of the story to be available for 7 months on snowHeads without the other side of the story being revealed Sad

Flangesax does indeed pose an apt question.... In the highly competitive world of ski resort services nothing would surprise me.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Good point, boredsurfin, i wonder if is should be standard policy that whenever adverse views are expressed here, the company should be immediately offered the chance to respond.
Over to you Admin . . .

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Fundamentally the issue arose out of the business stuffing up a booking that they had accepted and the perception around how it was handled.

The cash on the day is a total red herring as the business accepted this as the terms of the booking (no one twisted their arm). Also not sure why there is now some thought that the person was imaginary????

Reading the correspondence the booker had a right to feel aggrieved (not the the extent of 1 1/2 lost days but certainly aggrieved) and was venting. Sometimes its best to leave it at that and maybe if Lime had just stuck to re-iterating the apology BUT also offered a decent alternative then we may not be here (the E10 off is rather desultory and smacked of still wanting to make a decent profit out the session despite messing the potential customer around).

Also for your information the phrase "for your information" does not seem to be the best one to have used. Hard to not make it sounds like "this is where we tell you where you went wrong so its not our fault".

Now we are seeing this thread and another with the same criticism and retorts and even if many of the readers might take Lime's part there may be other readers that don't. Would have been much better for Lime if had been handled with a bit more sympathetically, including just taking the comments on the chin then they might not now be having to comment on each thread and who knows where else it is posted here and elsewhere.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

Can only say our experience of Lime has been brilliant. We have been to La Plagne 6 times with our 4 boys and for the first 4 years used one of the larger ski schools there. We had a range of problems including some instructors speaking poor English and on one occasion (every parents biggest nightmare) the youngest (aged 6) was left on a piste on his own and found by another family member a while later crying. The ski school in question had not even realised they were a child missing!! This resulted, not surprisingly, in the child not wanting to go to out with them again.
Lime we're brilliant for us, Dani and Craig are great fun and the boys loved going out with them every day. As a parent this makes the holiday so much better know your kids are so happy and more importantly safe. They also gave a brand-new-to-skiing adult in our group private lessons and his progress was massive.
Somebody asked 'are they qualified' - I believe they both hold the highest French certifications and spend the pre-season carrying out instructor training in Tignes.
Not saying they are perfect, (as Dani herself admits in her post), but for us they were great and we can't recommend them highly enough!

Having heard both sides the OP and partner sound a complete pain in the back bottom.

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Terrible cock-up from Dani who should not have let the subsequent correspondence descend into a petty hissy-fit e-row.

Only €10 off another lesson is a poor offer under the circumstances - a free hour in a 2-hour session would be more appropriate.

Emma does come across as a bit of a moaner but the grievance was genuine. I suggest she should put the matter into the hands of m'learned friends and let Justice take its course.

Help!!

AVOID LIME SKI SCHOOL LA PLAGNE is my advice

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