Alexandria, VA – Aug. 5, 2022 – In its strategic discussions this week about the culture and role of UMA, the Board of Directors kept coming back to the importance of acting with integrity. UMA Members truly value relationships with their fellow operators and long-term customers; relationships that are built on a foundation of trust that the other party is acting with integrity.
Just yesterday during the UMA Town Hall, an operator provided an example highlighting working with their competitors to coordinate large jobs. This is a common scenario especially for small fleet operators who would need to band together to handle a movement of multiple busloads of people. Even though it’s not their customer, operators still provide top-notch service for every job they handle, and this operator made a point of saying that he would never dream of giving his business card out to poach or pilfer someone else’s customer while helping a fellow UMA Member out on a job. This is the type of integrity that UMA members rely on when asking for assistance, a key hallmark of UMA Members.
The comments we receive here at UMA when a UMA Member bails another UMA Member out when a breakdown happens, speaks volumes to the integrity of these Member companies.
In recent months, we have seen numerous examples of school groups and other customers hiring a company to furnish transportation and then failing to show up. In many cases, it was discovered they hired a broker rather than an actual motorcoach company, but there have been operators who also were unable to meet their commitments as well. These stories give the industry a blackeye, and we want to ensure customers the industry can provide the service as promised.
UMA concludes that brokers and operators need to be up front with their customers about the service they are providing and inform them in a timely manner when problems arise. In other words, acting with integrity.
For these reasons, the UMA Board of Directors underscores the significance of integrity as a core value of UMA Members!