We would not be confident putting our children into group lessons again with Swiss Ski School…read moreVillars (ESS Villars) - https://www.ess-villars.ch.
This trip was the first time our two boys, ages six and eight, had been skiing, and one of the reasons we selected Villars is a friend living in the area told me about the Snow Garden.
The Snow Garden is wonderful. It is a family ski area right in the centre of the village. It has three escalator type step-on lifts which is perfect for beginners and different little slopes and play areas. Plus, there is a small bar there for parents to sit and watch if they aren't on the snow themselves.
The ESS Villars website also explained that this is the place for kids 3-8 to learn for the first time and when calling to make the reservations their lady confirmed all this information. We signed the boys up for four mornings at the Snow Garden and different private lessons for the adults.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in Villars and went in to confirm and pay for the ski lessons, another person in the ESS Villars office advised us that the Snow Garden was not the best place for them to learn because they would be surrounded by crying children and standing around all the time. Her advice was to put them in a group lesson up at Bretaye, which we did.
The experience during these group lessons was very disappointing, as the older boy (age 8) stood around for the two hours with crying children. The other boy (age 6) was picked to go off with a group and his single run resulted in him going out of control down the slope and crashing into a school of kids learning to snowboard. Due to the huge line at the button lift, there was no time for another run during the two hour lesson. After this experience, the youngest was a bit tramatised and went back to the hotel and we took the 8 year old ourselves to the Snow Garden. The experience at the Snow Garden after the wasted group lesson confirmed our original opinion that this would have been a better place to learn.
Accidents happen, and because it was a Swiss school holiday the group lesson area was absolutely mobbed with little kids. We think the instructors were competent and were doing the best they could. Our complaint is based on being advised against the Snow Garden and then having the same experience (standing around with crying kids).
The real problem started when I came back to the ESS Villars office and explained the situation and asked to think about a solution. What we came up with was to put the boys the following day in a private lesson together and we would look for additional lessons after that, even though these would be more expensive.
Since the lady at the desk at the office was not empowered to give a refund for the disappointing morning, I was asked to go upstairs and speak with the Director. He also confirmed that the Snow Garden was perfect for this, at least until I explained that one of his people advised us differently and we had a bad experience.
He proceeded to lecture me on his many years of experience and the thousands of children who have had lessons. It got more bizarre when he changed his story that the Snow Garden was not the perfect place during these two weeks (I think due to the Swiss school holiday). He then suggested that we move them back to Snow Garden for the rest of the week. He clearly hadn't been listening. My feeling was his rule was simply no refunds ever and he has this pre-packaged lecture. After a long time discussing with the front desk and more time re-explaining it to him and receiving his fire hose of irrelevant information, I decided to cancel all the rest of the weeks lessons.
By the time I got back down to the desk area, he had apparently been talking to the lady at the front desk by phone and granted the refund because he didn't want to loose the remaining bookings. This felt wrong to me, as I would have expected a company who provides lessons to children to want to make things right, but I decided to swallow my pride and go with the plan of new private lessons anyway in order to recover the experience for the kids.
For some reason, the Director decided to come down from his office and start his lecture process again. I had to ask a number of times what point he was trying to make, but he kept repeating himself. I could have ignored all this except his parting comment, after an hour of discussion and frustration, was "the customer is king." This was just too much. At no time during the discussion with him did I feel valued as a customer.
I decided to pull all of us out all the lessons we had signed up for. Instead of working with us to find a solution regarding 80 Francs, he lost his company almost 800 Francs worth of lessons.
If you do book with ESS Villars, I suggest you read the Terms and Conditions on the website very carefully.
The story ended well for the boys, as they took private lessons with a competitor in Villars.
