Soft skills:
Not as straightforward as you may think because so much of what can be described under this heading is hugely impacted by an individual’s own personality and demeanour.
In the chauffeuring profession the softer skills include etiquette, and perhaps this is indeed where common sense does play a major role. When it comes to etiquette and protocols you have a choice, you either use this all important common sense thing and do it your own way hoping you’ve got it somewhere near right, or seek instruction in the most formal and deemed to be correct methodology.
Many chauffeurs will say they’re very happy they’ve got this part nailed, they’ve been going thirty years so they can’t be doing anything too far off the mark and this is an argument I can get on board with to a certain extent. Fact is, some people undoubtedly have a much more natural flair for being ‘in-service’ than others and you only have to witness the differing abilities of top end hotel or restaurant staff for proof.
Having said that, even the most able ‘people people’ need professional training to some degree because you can never be one hundred percent sure you’re doing something right if you’ve never been shown what exactly ‘right’ is. No, for the vast majority of the time chauffeurs don’t really need to display the most formal way of doing any element of our job but it could be argued that if you’re calling yourself a professional chauffeur surely you should possess the whole spectrum of knowledge that goes with such a title, plus you just never know when that next task might actually call for it.
The hard skills:
The most obvious one of course is driving – but because that’s such a vitally important part of what we do I’m going to look at that separately later.
So, because we’re talking about training and course choice, the other obvious element to explore would be security. Again, the response of many a chauffeur will be “I don’t drive anyone who needs security so I’m not interested because it doesn’t apply to me”. Fair comment you would think but let’s analyse that statement a little more closely.
Most importantly, get it out of your head that chauffeur plus security equals bodyguard… it doesn’t, and that’s only one end of the spectrum. Security encompasses a multitude of sins from very simple awareness that applies to every single chauffeur in some way, through to working with a protection team.
I would hope the need for specific training for the latter would be obvious, (although don’t be too shocked to hear it’s often not), but there isn’t a chauffeur in the land whose type of operation, whatever that might be, isn’t affected in some way by a need for security in this day and age.
As I’ve said many times, don’t automatically link the mention of security in our profession to protecting clients from international terrorism. That’s a small, although very significant part of it of course but far more appropriate for the ‘everyday’ chauffeur if you like is the awareness needed to safeguard your passenger from common criminality which can and does affect us all.
Unless you’re ex-police or military, where security awareness has played a major part in your background, it is just not something you will automatically have. Yes, common sense again plays a major part but there is still an awful lot to be learned which only comes from formal instruction.
How far you take such instruction is up to you but whether it’s a more basic security awareness course, or the all singing all dancing security chauffeur/protection driver offerings that are on the market, every chauffeur can and will benefit from security training and much more importantly, so will their clients.
