GWR Ticket Office Commission

[dutchbedford]

In my experience, the only thing GWR members of staff may ‘upsell’ is first class and/or railcards. Two things which are scored by the DfT in terms of service quality, through mystery shops. As others have said, no commission for ticket office colleagues.

 

[50039]

My experience of GWR ticket offices has been excellent. Admittedly, I've only used them in Devon and Cornwall, but I've witnessed the staff helping out customers with pre-booking of complex journeys with multiple tickets, writing it down, offering cheaper options. And they've sold me cheaper tickets than the ticket machine would allow me to buy at the time...
Maybe it's a west country thing - but I've found them excellent

 

[father_jack]

OP still hasn't come back to spill da beans on where this is happening which makes me wonder......

 

[FY4]

Are staff at ticket offices at GWR paid commission based on sales they make?

I have never seen such aggressive upselling.

Firstly, I have had a few instances where staff try to convince me that tickets cost substantially more than they do, then get abusive when they're caught out and I buy one from a machine at the correct price instead.

I often split tickets to save money and staff at GWR spend over a minute trying to convince me to not do this, even to such extremes as the ticket costing £45 when split and £90 when it isn't, as the more expensive ticket offers greater flexibility and it's 'definitely worth paying twice as much to arrive ten minutes earlier'.

A month back they lied to my wife that it would be cheaper to buy two singles than a period return and unfortunately she believed them.

Today I have had a woman trying to convince me that I should buy a period return, rather than a day return, as this offers greater flexibility should I change my mind and decide to stay overnight at the last minute. As usual, she didn't just drop this when I politely declined and went on for over a minute attempting to convince me to spend more money.

I haven't experienced this with any other rail company and the only explanation I can think of for such aggressive upselling is that these guys are being paid commission.

I wonder if it's about the amount of money the office takes especially if not so long ago offices were risking closure

 

[Haywain]

I wonder if it's about the amount of money the office takes especially if not so long ago offices were risking closure

I doubt many staff have much idea about how much there office takes.

 

[The exile]

I wonder if it's about the amount of money the office takes especially if not so long ago offices were risking closure

In the case of the split ticket it sounds a bit a clumsy attempt to explain that the split being asked for will require an extra change. Frequent announcements on my (London) train saying that anyone with a Didcot split will need to change at Swindon onto a train that stops there suggests that it’s a bit of an issue.

 

[RPI]

Just for clarity, GWR ticket office staff don't get commission, not is there any kind of incentive to do the things alleged by the OP, the only up selling I'm aware of is Railcards, First class and plus bus which is fed from the DfT.

IT would be helpful to know exactly what was asked for, I'd be very surprised if the exact alleged interactions were taking place across multiple ticket offices and if they are then some refresher training would definitely be desirable.

I only really interact with ticket offices in the West Country where the vast majority of staff take a real pride in their stations and the information they provide to their passengers, most of the locals are on first name terms.

 

[SwindonBert]

I've always found the GWR staff to be very helpful & only sell what I need / ask for (although, far from uniquely on this site I'm probably more aware than the usual customer of what's possible)

They have had a new system installed a few weeks ago the training was about a day & if the OP had an incident just after then that was possibly the cause.

As for writing to your MP, unless, like me you live in Swindon South you're not likely to get more than a sympathetic reply & little else