Rant About Bromcom MIS: Has Customer Service Completely Disappeared?

[ultraspy2000]

I know this is a rant about Bromcom MIS but I hope others see some value in learning about my experience with them for past 8 years. Also, let me know your experience if you've been with them for some years. 

As a customer since 2018, I never thought I'd find myself writing a post like this, but the level of service we've experienced recently has been nothing short of appalling.

 

Firstly, contacting support has become a nightmare. The introduction of PIN and account number requirements on the phone system is frustrating enough, but the fact that the system rudely disconnects callers if the information isn't provided quickly enough is unacceptable. There is no sensible route to speak to a human being, explain the situation, or get assistance when you don't have the required details to hand because you look after multiple schools. Instead, you're simply cut off and forced to start again.

 

Secondly, we have recently been informed that restoring a student account that has been purged from the MIS now costs **£420 per student**. This came as a complete shock. When we originally discussed data restoration and support arrangements with our account manager and sales team back in 2018, nothing like this was ever mentioned.
 

We pays tens of thousands of pounds every year in support and maintenance fees. Any reasonable customer would assume that recovering data from their own MIS would fall within the scope of the support contract. Apparently not.

 

What makes this even worse is that this charging policy appears to have been introduced without any meaningful communication to existing customers. Discovering such a significant charge only when you need the service feels incredibly unfair and opportunistic.

 

Since then, I have spent considerable time trying to obtain an explanation. I've been repeatedly told that someone from the accounts team or our account manager would call me back, yet no one ever does. The result is an endless cycle of chasing, promises, and silence.

 

The most disappointing aspect is how different Bromcom feels compared to the company we originally signed up with. Many of Bromcom's early successes were built on loyalty of smaller schools and MATs. However, now that the company has grown and secured larger MAT customers, it feels as though smaller customers have been left behind.

 

The customer service that once existed appears to have vanished. The support desk is often dismissive, the accounts team seems uninterested in resolving concerns, and obtaining a straightforward explanation has become unnecessarily difficult.

 

After eight years as a customer, I can honestly say that the service has never felt this poor.

 

If you're currently considering moving to Bromcom, I would strongly encourage you to do your due diligence and speak to existing customers before making a decision.

 

This isn't coming from a competitor or a disgruntled former user. It's coming from a customer who has been with Bromcom since 2018 and is deeply disappointed by the direction the company appears to have taken.
 

[Devaleth]

I'm sorry to hear this - you sound very frustrated. I hope the post stays up.

 

We haven't been with Bromcom as long as you have but I feel like my current experience isn't too dissimilar to what you describe. I have had several of my tickets to support unresolved, often waiting weeks for a response that comes during a holiday period and then times out before I return so the helpdesk closes the ticket. The helpdesk is (it feels) hostile by design - it took me weeks to even get added to the approved list of people for the school.

 

The Knowledge base of problems isn't helpful in this regard either. For all of SIMS problems, their old knowledge base was full of resolved issues which gave specific solutions to the issue (often quoting a particular patch number that would work). Bromcom's is just "this was the problem, this is what the user expected, this is what happened instead". Maybe it's a small thing but it gives the impression of "this is what we offer, like it or leave it". I think it's been brought up in the past, but when there is a problem and a user gives a sensible recommendation for improvement, the helpdesk doesn't take that onboard and it becomes the user's responsibility to re-post it on the suggestions area.

 

I know that I still should for the collective good, but I've stopped reporting problems because it feels like a waste of my time, and it's less stress to just work around the problem. I never felt that way about SIMS support.

[Synkrox]

I don't use support much for the reasons you describe. 

I've had tickets open over a year for actual bugs.

I feel like they are struggling under their own weight. Not just in end user support but backend stuff (which, to be fair, does seem like there's some movement on now)

 

But the most unforgivable crime is their documentation and knowledgebase. Utterly, utterly awful. Pixelated screenshots and hastily jotted notes.

 

They slapped an AI Agent on the community and even that can't help as half the questions go unanswered and relies on the good will of others to answer (often very simple) questions

 

If they want their helpdesk calls to go down, then maybe they should invest some time making the information available and readily searchable /findable.

 

 

[Bromcom_Alastair]

@ultraspy2000 very sorry to hear you've had such a frustrating experience and things haven't been adequately addressed. 

Feedback is always taken seriously and we would therefore encourage you to lodge a format complaint with us so we can investigate and a full response can be provided. 

  

Details of our complaints process can be found here:

How to Raise a Complaint About Bromcom's Products or Services

 

[ultraspy2000]

 

Thank you very much for the comments and details, @Devaleth and @Synkrox.

I completely agree regarding the knowledge base, and it's another major frustration I have with them. The irony is that we're all paying thousands of pounds each year for support, whether we use or not, yet the quality of that support is getting worst. 

 

From reading the comments in this thread, I think it's clear that my experience isn't an isolated one and perhaps the most concerning point is that several people are now actively avoiding contacting support because they don't feel it is worth the effort. For any service organisation, that should be a significant warning sign.

I sincerely hope Bromcom takes this feedback on board because there are clearly some systemic issues that need addressing.

 

@Bromcom_Alastair

Thank you for the response and I'm not sure if submitting a formal complaint will do anything which I haven't email senior leadership at Bromcom so many times before.  Also, from the feedback in this and other threads I think it shows the extend of the issue and it's beyond a single complaint and points to broader concerns around customer service, support responsiveness, account management, and customer engagement. 

[DrBeaker]

The great enshitification of everything IT related continues

[ultraspy2000]

1 minute ago, DrBeaker said:

The great enshitification of everything IT related continues

Lol... very true.

[JazzFlute]

Interesting reading

Schools ‘expected’ to use government route to buy MIS from 2027

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-expected-to-use-government-route-to-buy-mis-from-2027/

 

 

[themightymrp]

We have just come across this same issue of being charged to restore a users data. When did this become a thing?? We only signed a new contract in December so I have the latest wording here. Nothing mentioned about a cost to restore data from a backup! This is disgusting

[Devaleth]

Not sure the context around schools deleting records and then needing to restore them (from a Data Protection PoV that sounds like a mistake had been made by the school) but I can understand why that wouldn't fit within normal expected working practises and incur additional costs. From Bromcom's side this might not be a simple job of spinning up a backup and replacing like for like, they'd have to spend time identifying the relevant sections of data within logs or backup of the database and then merge into live, possibly even testing first in a different environment.

 

I would argue the fact that it isn't mentioned in your contract lends credence to the idea this isn't something they support as normal business.

 

And this is coming from someone who is critical of Bromcom as a whole.