SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

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schoolsearching
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SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby schoolsearching » Fri Sep 14, 2018 2:42 pm

I was treated very badly by SwimWay. My son had the first lesson of the afternoon at the Balham pool and the instructor showed up late. I phoned the office and the instructor LIED saying that they arrived on time. I have an email with a time stamp to the office proving that I was there and the instructor was late. Despite this I was not believed. I asked for a refund for the class but this was refused by the MD. I would not recommend SwimWay to anyone new and certainly will not be booking any swim classes through them again.
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Mon Sep 17, 2018 10:28 am

Dear Marissa,

Following your review, I have done further due diligence, contacting your instructor Alejandro, who once again confirmed his arrival at 14:45. I then contacted Jay, the other instructor, who confirmed his own arrival at 14:50, and said Alejandro was already on site, with all facilities prepped for the lessons.

Additionally, I have contacted the dad of Jay’s 15:00 student who has also confirmed Alejandro was on site and ready to teach when he arrived between 14:50 and 14:55. He chatted to both Alejandro and Jay prior to Jay’s lesson starting promptly at 15:00. Alejandro and he continued to chat after the lesson started as you had not arrived for your 15:00 class.

Your email about no one being on site was received at 14:40. Your voicemail was received at 14:45. I can only assume you left just before Alejandro arrived. We very specifically state that clients are to arrive no more than 10 minutes prior the start of their lesson. To leave before the requested arrival time seems hasty. Even if Alejandro had been late and arrived at 14:50 or 14:55 (as these things do happen), the facilities would have been made accessible by Jay at 14:50, and Alejandro would still have been ready to teach your lesson at 15:00.

As you can see, we have not taken your accusations lightly, and are extremely upset by your unfair reviews. We always welcome positive and negative feedback to help us build a better service, but on this occasion, we do not believe your reviews are factual, or warranted. We would very much appreciate it if you removed them.

We obviously do not want to force anyone to swim with us if they are so unsatisfied with our service, so we will refund you for the 12 remaining lessons this term.

I have left you from the class and as per your request, unsubscribed you from our database.

Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me directly on 02088713972 (ext.2) or willmccabe@swimway.co.uk, Monday to Friday, 09:30-14:30.

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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Neptune214
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby Neptune214 » Mon Sep 17, 2018 2:42 pm

Schoolsearching

I too had issues with Swimway. Multiple from the start. We eventually did get them resolved after several attempts but mostly this was because they refused to refund the remaining lessons despite some pretty appalling behaviour from one of the instructors causing my daughter to become quite terrified of the water.

The instructor we eventually ended up with was very good.

Eventually we stopped going as we heard (first hand) of an incident endangering the safety of a child.

So I’m with you I’m afraid. I wouldn’t recommend.
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:05 am

Dear Neptune214,

I am sorry to hear you have been unsatisfied with our service.  I would be happy to investigate further if you could email us your information (info@swimway.co.uk).  We would appreciate the chance to publicly address your complaint.

I can confidently and comfortably say that our health and safety practices are second to none.  Constant training, supervision, and development are key to our programme.  Our system has not only created a safe and happy atmosphere for the children we teach, but other Swim Schools have adopted our H&S practices and training routines too.

We welcome any potential new clients to visit any of our sites prior to our lessons to see for themselves, or simply call us on 02088713972 for a chat.

Just a few snippets:

http://www.swimway.co.uk/about/health-safety/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/about/quality-control/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/ensuring-safe- ... g-lessons/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/summer-2017-he ... -training/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/swimway-team-h ... term-2017/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/swimway-instru ... -teachers/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/swimway-team-h ... term-2018/
http://www.swimway.co.uk/health-safety- ... mmer-2018/

Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me directly on 02088713972 (ext.2) or willmccabe@swimway.co.uk, Monday to Friday, 09:30-14:30.

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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whizzbang
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby whizzbang » Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:02 pm

WOW Swimway, quite an odd response to schoolsearching's post.
'we don't want to force you to swim with us so we've cancelled everything'. Really?
Not thinking better to be the bigger person / company?
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oab
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby oab » Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:41 pm

My 2 kids take swimming classes with swimway.
We used their Balham pool and know Alejandro (not my kids teacher but he was always around when we were there) - he is a very nice guy (and a good teacher too), and I find it hard to believe he would have lied. Of course I can’t tell for sure but perhaps this was a misunderstanding more than anything else??
Also be mindful of the fact that they run classes in people’s homes (one of their unique selling points really , as the environment is cosier for young children) and this means they need to stick by what is agreed with the house owners - it may be that your instructor can’t actually come in the house before a certain time or they don’t allow buggies in the house, etc.

To swimway - perhaps it’s a good idea to be more flexible with your refund policy in the future? Of course you run a business and have to pay fixed costs, etc ... but the reality is a bad customer review will stay online forever and can put off new customers ...

Anyways, as all other posts on this thread were negative I thought I had to add that our experience was positive.
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wonkymonkey
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby wonkymonkey » Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:42 pm

Both my children have swimming lessons with Swimway and specifically with Alejandro.  My eldest learnt to swim very quickly (half a term) and is super confident now which is amazing given she didn't even want to get in the water at the start of her first lesson.  Alejandro was very calm in his approach at the start and is exceptional at encouraging the children and making the lessons fun. 

I have only good things to say about Swimway and all the parents I've met there feel the same. I'm not commenting specifically about the situation for the OP but I did want to make sure there were balanced reviews here. I am a very strong supporter of their teaching methods.  We have had swimming lessons previously at two other places and Swimway is way ahead of them in terms of teaching quality and the pool environment.  I would strongly recommend to anyone.
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:12 am

Dear Oab/WonkyM,

Thank you for your support and feedback.  We will most certainly take what you, as well as WhizzB, have said on board to ensure we do not experience such a negative response in the future.

We felt it would be unfair to not support our head coach and trust in what he told us.  Especially when fully backed by our second instructor and a client who were on site at the same time.  If an instructor is late, they simply tell us and we deal with it - there is absolutely no reason for them to lie about it.  Especially for someone like Alejandro, who has a sterling reputation at our company.  He was quite upset when he read the review.

You are right in that it may be more productive to respond in another manner to avoid this kind of blowback.  We always do, and always will keep this in mind for any future issues where we are at fault.

As previously mentioned, we truly appreciate positive and negative feedback to ensure our service is constantly monitored, assessed and improved.  We welcome the chance to openly discuss and allow others their helpful input.

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Wed Sep 19, 2018 9:15 am

Dear WhizzB,

Further to the above, I thought it appropriate to mention that we refunded SchoolS for the term as per her own request.  I could perhaps have made that more apparent in my original response.  Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby Flowermummy » Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:01 pm

Our children swim with swimway too, we've been using them for more than 1 and a half years with no problems. We are at Balham, we don't have Alejandro but know him/have spoken with him on many occasions. He is a very nice guy, he has been working there for at least 1 year, so he is not a rogue who would lie just to cover up being late... He is also a very good teacher, I wish we had him actually!
So, schoolsearching, IMO you jumped the gun by getting super annoyed about this misunderstanding.... you should have pushed for a refund of your first lesson but continued with Alejandro as he is a great teacher. Your son sounds very young (not school age, if you can go to swimming at 3pm), so no doubt you still have a long time to teach him swimming (generally in schools they start swimming in Y1, and it's at that stage that it really helps if you child can do it already). Best of luck with finding a new swim school.
 
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:25 am

Dear FlowerM,

Thank you for your message - we are so happy to hear how happy you have been with your lessons!  It always makes us proud to hear feedback like this as we work extremely hard to ensure our service standards meet the expectations of our clients.

Just to make everything 100% clear and transparent though, SchoolS did initially ask for a refund for the one lesson only.  However, following our investigations mentioned above (confirmations from both instructors and a client that everyone was on site, on time), we refused this request.  It seems the client left the site at around 14:45, which is 5 minutes before they were supposed to arrive for their 15:00 lesson.  We felt it would be unfair to penalise Alejandro given that, in our opinion, he was not at fault.

Following our refusal of the refund for the lesson, SchoolS then requested a refund for the term.

I just thought it best to ensure the procedures we followed were clearly laid out for anyone reading this.

Thank you again for taking the time to post your opinion and feedback!

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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CBLDN
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby CBLDN » Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:22 pm

schoolsearching wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 2:42 pmI was treated very badly by SwimWay. My son had the first lesson of the afternoon at the Balham pool and the instructor showed up late. I phoned the office and the instructor LIED saying that they arrived on time. I have an email with a time stamp to the office proving that I was there and the instructor was late. Despite this I was not believed. I asked for a refund for the class but this was refused by the MD. I would not recommend SwimWay to anyone new and certainly will not be booking any swim classes through them again.
Firstly, I am new to this website and was pointed out this review by my wife who is equally as shocked as I am.
I felt the need to create an account to reply as what has been portrayed is not true and I was there so I should know and hopefully I will be able to give a a third party witness review of what actually happened on the day.

We have been taking our son swimming with SwimWay at this pool for over a year now. Our son can be difficult due to a speech and language delay, SwimWay have accommodated this and have been so very patient with our son along the way. He has already had numerous trips to hospital and SwimWay have either refunded the lessons or rolled them over without even asking for proof of the hospital stays.
I was present at the pool when the alleged 'no show of the instructor' on that day.

SwimWay are very clear in their T&C and ask that parents turn up no earlier than ten minutes before ones due lessons time so not disrupt the previous lesson, this is something that is emailed to all at least twice each term. As someone has already mentioned the lessons are in private houses so gaining access is swift and one can be in the pool within five minutes of entering.

On this day we arrived ten minutes before, got changed and entered the pool on time. I can confirm that Alejandro was on time and sat at the side of the pool, ready and waiting along with our instructor Jay. I find it unbelievable that someone would write a bad review or as I understand write a number of bad reviews on various websites based on turning up 15 minutes early, leaving straight away before a lesson is even due to start. The office has an answering machine on if a client is ill or needs to re-schedule a lesson and they always get back to you in a couple of hours. When a lesson was previously cancelled due to the pool temperature not being correct we were called 15 minutes before and given a full refund which shows you how professional the company is as most would make a child swim in a cool pool!

I suggest that this post is taken down and ADMIN please do contact me directly if you need this clarifying. A post which is not accurate such as this one can be very damaging to a small company who provide a fantastic local service. If I was SwimWay I would be seeking advice as this is pure defamation and damaging.

SwimWay is fantastic and we hope that they will be a very long time.

 
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:52 am

Dear CBLDN,

Thank you once again for your continued support.  I cannot express how happy I am to hear how satisfied you are with our service.  While we are always looking for ways to improve, and will never stop trying to do so, it makes us so proud to hear our clients speaking positively about the work we do, in the water AND in the office!

While we would prefer the post be taken down, we feel it is better to not escalate this too much further.  I would rather take a step back and let it rest.  Hopefully, potential clients will read all the responses above and see for themselves how everything played out.

Once again, many thanks to you, and everyone else for taking the time to post your messages.  As always, I am happy to chat directly with anyone who has any further queries/concerns on 02088713972 (ext.2) or willmccabe@swimway.co.uk, Monday to Friday, 09:30-14:30.

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby Maryg » Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:01 pm

I’ve been with swimway for over three years now and they are excellent. My daughter has gained so much confidence since joining. She now swims so well on summer holidays and loves the water. My youngest is also loving it. I highly reccomend them. It’s a shame timing was a problem for you, but they really are a great who try to be accommodating.
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SwimWay
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Re: SwimWay swimming school - WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

Postby SwimWay » Mon Sep 24, 2018 12:49 pm

Dear Maryg,

Thank you for your lovely message!  I am so glad to hear you've been having such a positive experience with us, and have remained with us for all these years.  Great that your youngest is also doing so well, and I hope they continue to do so for the next few years to come!

All the best, and happy swimming!

Will McCabe
SwimWay Operations Manager
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