GWR good customer service

[AdamWW]

I was caught up in the disruption yesterday on GWR, and was impressed with the guard on the train I was on as we sat at Bristol Parkway for over an hour, waiting for things to start moving further down the line. He made frequent announcements, even when he didn't have anything new to say.

I imagine there are different opinions on this and I'm sure there's a strong temptation to keep quiet until there is more news, but I value knowing that the staff on the train are telling us all they know rather than just not bothering to say anything. And "Here's the latest update - there's no update" is mildly amusing.

I complain enough about bad customer service so ought to say something when I have a positive experience...

 

[irish_rail]

Good to hear.

 

[Horizon22]

It's generally good practice to make announcements every X minutes even if that is "there is no update from my previous message, apologies for the continued delay".

 

[43066]

I was caught up in the disruption yesterday on GWR, and was impressed with the guard on the train I was on as we sat at Bristol Parkway for over an hour, waiting for things to start moving further down the line. He made frequent announcements, even when he didn't have anything new to say.

I imagine there are different opinions on this and I'm sure there's a strong temptation to keep quiet until there is more news, but I value knowing that the staff on the train are telling us all they know rather than just not bothering to say anything. And "Here's the latest update - there's no update" is mildly amusing.

I complain enough about bad customer service so ought to say something when I have a positive experience...

Good to hear.

As above, announcements should be made regularly during disruption, even if there’s nothing new to add. This is to reduce the risk of people self evacuating.

 

[AdamWW]

Good to hear.

As above, announcements should be made regularly during disruption, even if there’s nothing new to add. This is to reduce the risk of people self evacuating.

Not really a risk when at a platform. But the (non) updates were still welcome.

 

[Towers]

Deleted.

 

[Deepgreen]

I think this demonstrates that most poor service is at corporate/management level while many front line staff members strive to do what they can. BTW, were the doors released during this, such that people could board and alight? If so, some may board and hear the announcement 'fresh'.

 

[Jamiescott1]

Apart from majority of Paddington gateline staff, I find gwr ground staff very good. The guards on the marlow line are always excellent

 

[AdamWW]

I think this demonstrates that most poor service is at corporate/management level while many front line staff members strive to do what they can.

I think there's a lot of truth to that, but there is of course a lot of variation in how on board staff communicate and this was very much at the better end, hence me thinking it worthy of comment.

BTW, were the doors released during this, such that people could board and alight? If so, some may board and hear the announcement 'fresh'.

They were and of course that's another reason to make announcements - because you certainly can't assume that station staff will let people know what's going on even if they know themselves. Often they will just leave it to the automated announcements which aren't terribly helpful in knowing what's going on when nothing is on the move.

But aside from that it's still valuable in my opinion to let passengers know that the guard hasn't forgotten them even if nobody has been able to give the guard any useful information.

 

[py_megapixel]

They were and of course that's another reason to make announcements - because you certainly can't assume that station staff will let people know what's going on even if they know themselves. Often they will just leave it to the automated announcements which aren't terribly helpful in knowing what's going on when nothing is on the move.

I do think there's a case in times of severe disruption for turning off the automated announcer and giving a member of staff the job of making regular announcements to keep people updated. Often the auto announcer will just endlessly repeat "The [time] service to [destination] is delayed. Please listen for further information." which isn't that helpful and gets terribly irritating after a while.

 

[The exile]

I do think there's a case in times of severe disruption for turning off the automated announcer and giving a member of staff the job of making regular announcements to keep people updated. Often the auto announcer will just endlessly repeat "The [time] service to [destination] is delayed. Please listen for further information." which isn't that helpful and gets terribly irritating after a while.

Absolutely - automated announcements spouting drivel, giving false information or uttering insincere apologies are all too common. As for “your next fastest direct train” announcing the one following the delayed service when the one before hasn’t yet arrived at the same platform or implying you’ve got to wait for an hour when “take the next train to xyz and change” will get you there three quarters of an hour earlier…

 

[AdamWW]

Absolutely - automated announcements spouting drivel, giving false information or uttering insincere apologies are all too common. As for “your next fastest direct train” announcing the one following the delayed service when the one before hasn’t yet arrived at the same platform or implying you’ve got to wait for an hour when “take the next train to xyz and change” will get you there three quarters of an hour earlier…

The one that really annoyed me was waiting (coincidentally) at Bristol Parkway when the train I was waiting for was having to run very slowly, but the automated system was operating as if it was going at line speed. So it would keep being announced as the next train, then another train coming in a different way would come in front of it.

When I finally went and asked what was going on it turned out that the staff knew what was happening but had chosen not to make any announcements and just leave things to the misleading automated system.

 

[The exile]

Quite a few of the examples of what led me to my post were experienced at Bristol Parkway….

 

[Dr Hoo]

I think this demonstrates that most poor service is at corporate/management level while many front line staff members strive to do what they can. BTW, were the doors released during this, such that people could board and alight? If so, some may board and hear the announcement 'fresh'.

What sort of ‘poor’ service at corporate or management level do you have in mind? Surely most of these roles aren’t in customer-facing or on-board jobs.

 

[Parallel]

I do think there's a case in times of severe disruption for turning off the automated announcer and giving a member of staff the job of making regular announcements to keep people updated. Often the auto announcer will just endlessly repeat "The [time] service to [destination] is delayed. Please listen for further information." which isn't that helpful and gets terribly irritating after a while.

I agree if the announcement system is set up as global for a station, but not for somewhere like Reading where the automated system is zoned by pairs of platforms but the manual ones cover the whole station. Passengers on platform 13 don’t need lots of information about a train on platform 7!

 

[py_megapixel]

I agree if the announcement system is set up as global for a station, but not for somewhere like Reading where the automated system is zoned by pairs of platforms but the manual ones cover the whole station. Passengers on platform 13 don’t need lots of information about a train on platform 7!

As the passenger on platform 13 experiencing disruption, I'd rather have useful updates on the situation, even if some of it is more pertinent to the train on platform 7, than just to be told "Attention please on platform 13 - [my train] has been cancelled" over and over again.

Clearly if some platforms are such that whatever problem is going on doesn't affect the service through them, then they should be left in the automated system and the manual announcements broadcast only to the affected platforms.