I'd like to support a point made in MikeeB's post: namely that FTOs should seek, actively, feedback from their successful and unsuccessful students. It's only in this way that continuing improvement may be discerned and effected.
I have no complaints about the school I attended, nor about the standard of instruction or attitude of instructors. I am, however, someone who has undertaken much training over the course of my life, both formal and informal, leading to many examinations and qualifications. In several fields, I now also train others, both one-to-one and in groups, and I also examine. I feel, therefore, that I have been able to understand the nature of training given to me, and to extract what I need from it - even if it is not as polished an exercise as it might be.
It would seem to me that a substantial number of people attracted to flying, and willing to seek to part with substantial sums in order to qualify as pilots, are probably used, in their professional lives outside flying, to sophisticated training methods, aids, and techniques. The impression is that many FTOs are perhaps 20 years behind in these matters.
(I hasten to add that the most significant feature of sophisticated training lies in the attitude of instructors, and the environment of instruction. It does not necessarily lie in the complexity, and expense, of instructional aids. There is not, therefore, necessarily, a requirement for FTOs to spend a great deal of capital.)
An empirical view of commercially available training aids reveals a certain amateurishness of production values. (I have not reviewed, for my purposes, the latest CBT aids on offer, but some videotape aids, or some literature, which I have seen seem to fall into this category.)
A first step, for all FTOs, in achieving a level of customer satisfaction in advance of their current levels must be to understand the perception of them formed by their students. This needs systematically to be gathered.
My personal experience is that, whilst individual instructors are generally interested in feedback, the organizations themselves are somewhat less interested.
I'd like to urge all FTOs meaningfully and actively to consult with their students: formally to do so will not only provide valuable information for the FTO, but will also aid the student (customer) to form the perception that they are dealing with a professional organization which takes its task seriously.