BASC Level 2 time frames YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

[MJ75]

Gents

There have been a few people complaining about the length of time to receive your Level 2 certificate via BASC. You may want to consider the time frame if you need it quickly, this has been my experience so far. In this time I have not had three phone calls returned when I was promised I would do. I believe the BASC staff associated with DSC awards to be incompetent and so would advise you to investigate other channels if you need your Level 2 quickly :-

03/09/13 BASC received my completed portfolio.

20/09/13 BASC eventually send it to my assesor, I am at a loss as to why this took over two weeks.

06/12/13 BASC receive my portfolio back from my assessor who confirmed during our phone call that there were no issues with it.

10/12/13 BASC send my portfolio off to an IV for independent verification.

25/02/13 I receive a phone call from an Internal Verifier, telling me my portfolio had been misplaced with one other by him and he would now be sending it back to BASC HQ for award as there are no issues with it.

27/02/13 It arrives back at BASC.

03/03/13 Advised by, after chasing the woman yet again after she failed to return my phone call over a week ago that my certificate will be with me this week.

We shall see....

I'm seriously unimpressed that it will take over six months to receive my certificate from BASC after they received the completed portfolio. I doubt it will arrive this week, based on my previous experience of their customer service but time will tell. For the purposes of clarity there were no issues with it's content. I'm sure others will have had better service than I, but I think the timeframes are worth bearing i mind if you need this qualification in a timely manner.

 

[Greymaster]

It does make you wonder how they can credibly harangue Firearms departments for dilatoritude ?

 

[David63]

I will gladly look into this for you, especially the 2 week delay in sending to the assessor,but just to check:

Your assessor (not BASC) had it for 2 1/2 months,
BASC posted it to the IV within 2 working days of receiving it back from them.
The IV (not BASC) had it for another 2 1/2 months , lost it, found it and posted it back to BASC, it arrived last Thursday
BASC plan to get the certificate out to you within a week....

I am afraid we cant issue certificates until the portfolio has been assessed and verified.

David

 

[Paul at Fechan]

Mentioned on another thread that text updates/emails would help ensure the transfer of portfolios and their location are never in question, just a though for the next QAG meeting

 

[MJ75]

David

Of course you cannot issue certificates before they have been assessed and verified. Who would expect you to do this? Please don't post random rubbish to deflect the issue of your organisations failures, it's quite insulting to your customers intelligence.

What you can do however is the following :-

Ensure that your staff are fully trained in customer service skills and have the common decency to return phone calls. Apparently you send out a letter confirming that the portfolio has been received. I did not receive this and so called BASC to ask for an update, no one was available to answer my question and so I was told I'd receive a call back to confirm that you had it. I never did.

When I finally did speak to a lady I was advised that everything should be completed by January. At no point have I been contacted by any BASC staff, the company who I have paid to administer this service to explain there is a delay. The people you mention may not be on the BASC pay roll, though if you are not meeting the customers expectation at least let the customer know there is a delay. I have not had at least two other calls returned when asking for an update. Again, this is BASC's failing, not any third parties.

You need to accept your responsibilities and understand, as you appear not to, that if someone is paying your organisation for a service, then you should as a matter of courtesy inform your customers of any potential delays or issues due to third parties. Not returning customer calls is inexcusable on BASC's part. Setting a customers expectations and then not informing them of a delay is discourteous, unprofessional and quite rude.

In short you need to get your act together when taking customers money and assume some responsibility for the people you work with when your staff set customers expectations by indicating a completion time. DMQ currently specify that the award can take upto 14 weeks to be awarded, as previously stated, it will be 27 weeks tomorrow in my case. So why are BASC not communicating with their customers?

If calls to your office are recorded feel free to listen to my call today to one of your admin people, you even have my permission to post the conversation on here, I struggled to get a word in edgeways as excuses were made before I had even finished my sentence. As has been suggested elsewhere, you really do need to improve your communication with your customers and keep them better informed of the whole process.

I'm really not interested in you trying to blame other people, it is BASC who's service I am disappointed with due to poor communication and incompetence, but perhaps you can quantify why after an IV advised that there were no issues with the portfolio, it now has to go to another IV apparently before the award can be made and I get my long awaited certificate.

Thanks

 

[David63]

I am sorry you think I am posting rubbish in order to distract from your point or that I have failed to grasp where the responsibility rests , as I said, I will look into this.

Feedback is very important and I agree without reservation that customer service is paramount. I am sorry things have not gone as smoothly as you or I would like, and we must learn from this to make sure it does not happen again.

thank you for your post

David

 

[Willie]

Hi MJ75,

I'm sorry to hear about the protracted time to obtain your DMQ Level 2 certificate however my experience with BASC was quite the opposite only taking 6 weeks from sending in my portfolio to receiving my certificate. extremely helpful when updating me on progress as like you I needed the certificate on a sharp timescale. Hope everything works out OK in the end as I think your experiences are the exception to the rule,

Willie

 

[Apache]

I had mine back in under 6 weeks, submitted October last year. In the system the same time as yours, BASC being the assessment centre.

 

[widows son]

Gents

There have been a few people complaining about the length of time to receive your Level 2 certificate via BASC. You may want to consider the time frame if you need it quickly, this has been my experience so far. In this time I have not had three phone calls returned when I was promised I would do. I believe the BASC staff associated with DSC awards to be incompetent and so would advise you to investigate other channels if you need your Level 2 quickly :-

If you needed it back Quickly you should have done it earlier simple, I do a lot of level two's for nothing I may add, if the candidate doesn't like my time scale go and pay someone for the pleasure.

I've got to work for a living, the last thing I really want to do is come in and start a level two just so someone can get another bit of useless paper.

The AW system is the paramount part of the level two, the part with all the work, everyone else that handles the portfolio reads it adding the odd note , I've yet to meet a candidate that actually understands all of the questions asked in the various elements & questions .

Trust me im also seriously unimpressed with a huge amount of candidates, that put themselves forward for something that they haven't thought about 36 pages of writing for the AW, for it to go to the assessor the IV then to the EV for checking all these people have jobs as well ,which takes me back to question in bold if you need it quickly you should have done it earlier, easy rule of thumb .

 

[MJ75]

I had mine back in under 6 weeks, submitted October last year. In the system the same time as yours, BASC being the assessment centre.

See, this is my point, if it can be turned around quickly, why are they taking so long with others? I guess they didn't hold onto yours for two weeks doing nothing.

 

[MJ75]

If you needed it back Quickly you should have done it earlier simple, I do a lot of level two's for nothing I may add, if the candidate doesn't like my time scale go and pay someone for the pleasure.

Did I say I needed it quickly? This is assumption on your part, and pretty pointless really. Though I certainly did not think it would take at least 13 weeks and counting longer than the paperwork I was supplied suggested.

The paperwork states around fourteen weeks for completion once the portfolio has been submitted. This is after you've done your three stalks, so your point is moot really. The whole point of this thread is to advise those who are wanting their "pointless piece of paper" that it may take a lot longer than they hoped.

Now if you think laterally, I'm warning others about the same issue you've just commented on, see?

The issue is BASC's lack of communication and poor customer service. All they need to do is create a very simple spreadsheet, and update candidates of delays if their expectations are not met. I don't believe this is too much to ask. It's certainbly not the fault of the candidate as you seem to imply, especialy when there were no issues with the portfolio as stated by the AW, Assesor AND the IV! Though apparently it now needs to go to a 'senior' IV.

Their administrator could pay more attention to timeframes of portfolios, chase up delays and advise people what's going on. They are a commercial organisation, taking peoples money whilst providing a service after all. Attempting to shift blame to others that the organisation uses is not very professional. If I'd have treated clients at work in the same way, my employer would have formally disciplined me at best. They need to get their act together, state a realistic time frame once they dispatch the portfolio and update the candidate once the completed portfolio has been received if that time frame has changed. Monitor it's progres and advise people if anything changes by a phone call or email. It's really not that difficult to do.

Sadly there isn't a lot of competition n this area. If more companies where able to undertake DSC qualifications then I'm sure service would improve all around. I would however strongly recomend that all level 2 candidates post on here the dates when they submit their portfolio, when they receive a call from an assesor and IV (if applicable) and the certificate itself. It may help people get their act together after all.

 

[MJ75]

Hi MJ75,

I'm sorry to hear about the protracted time to obtain your DMQ Level 2 certificate however my experience with BASC was quite the opposite only taking 6 weeks from sending in my portfolio to receiving my certificate. Always found Mary Fishhburne extremely helpful when updating me on progress as like you I needed the certificate on a sharp timescale. Hope everything works out OK in the end as I think your experiences are the exception to the rule,

Willie

Sadly I've found her to be hopeless, calls not returned and she's consistently failed to give me a date when I'll receive my certificate when I have spoke to her.

 

[MJ75]

I am sorry you think I am posting rubbish in order to distract from your point or that I have failed to grasp where the responsibility rests , as I said, I will look into this.

Feedback is very important and I agree without reservation that customer service is paramount. I am sorry things have not gone as smoothly as you or I would like, and we must learn from this to make sure it does not happen again.

thank you for your post

David

Thank you. I look forward to hearing from you. Hopefully with a confirmed date for my certificate.

 

[David63]

Good morning,

I have double checked and your certificate has been printed and signed as in the post to you, it should arrive, post permitting, within a couple of days, if not please let me know.

My sincere apologies for the delay.

David

 

[Greymaster]

... All they need to do is create a very simple spreadsheet, and update candidates of delays if their expectations are not met. ...

... Their administrator could pay more attention to timeframes of portfolios, chase up delays and advise people what's going on. formally disciplined me at best. ...Monitor it's progres and advise people if anything changes by a phone call or email. It's really not that difficult to do.

...I would however strongly recomend that all level 2 candidates post on here the dates when they submit their portfolio, when they receive a call from an assesor and IV (if applicable) and the certificate itself. It may help people get their act together after all.

Your idea about a spreadsheet is a good one. Many DSC providers do boast about pass rates etc. but none are actually able to boast about turnaround times. Time to monitor all DSC providers so that the bottlenecks can be identified?

With my DSC1 I couldn't take the shooting element test on the day due to an injury. When I did take it, and there were inordinate delays in the issuing of the certificate, even though the pass was confirmed on the day, I discovered that:

1. The assessor took three weeks to actually post the test result to the BASC
2. The BASC person next in line to review was overseas working and no provision was made to deal with his paperwork in his absence.

I was promised that the process would be looked at. The assessor was freelance and allegedly "out of their direct control". Seems like they may have looked at the process, and altered nothing.

 

[MJ75]

Good morning,

I have double checked and your certificate has been printed and signed as in the post to you, it should arrive, post permitting, within a couple of days, if not please let me know.

My sincere apologies for the delay.

David

Thank you.

Can you please answer my previous question, as to why my portfolio required not one but two independent verifiers to asses it?

Can you also advise if BASC will be putting in procedures to monitor the time frames of the whole process and improve communication to their customers?

 

[Apache]

Can you please answer my previous question, as to why my portfolio required not one but two independent verifiers to asses it?

Can you also advise if BASC will be putting in procedures to monitor the time frames of the whole process and improve communication to their customers?

Your first question is one of quality control and I had read somewhere that this happens in selected cases. It's to ensure consistency between assessors and is a strength of the entire process. I see it as a positive thing.

You are also dealing with people. Some assessors will have more on their plate at certain times than others. Going through the portfolios will take time to do properly. I personally think it is reasonable the assessor having a reasonable time to go over the portfolio. I don't think a month with an assessor is unreasonable. Humans do daft things at times and things get lost despite the best of intentions - have you never misplaced some important paperwork? I know I have. I don't know how many assessors there are but it's not going to be that many.

So what if it takes 6 months in some cases to get the paperwork back?

 

[mereside]

when i put in for my level 2 I was told that so many get pulled out of the pile for a second look with another varifier no biggy but i was happy to have another chap look over my portfolio and all give me the thumbs up,atb wayne

 

[JC275]

If you needed it back Quickly you should have done it earlier simple, I do a lot of level two's for nothing I may add, if the candidate doesn't like my time scale go and pay someone for the pleasure.

I've got to work for a living, the last thing I really want to do is come in and start a level two just so someone can get another bit of useless paper.

I've got to ask, why do you involve yourself in the system at all if you feel the end result is a useless piece of paper? You are not alone in this, there are a couple of people on here who claim to be AW's but spend a lot of time whining and generally running down DMQ, I really can't understand it. If AW's display such negativity what hope have candidates got?

 

[David63]

MJ,
The IV in question is in the training phase so anything he IV's needs to be checked - this was done within a couple of days of the portfolio being returned

Yes I am reviewing on how we can significantly improve customer communications