Great Western Coffee Shop

I hope Grahame won't mind me taking this from his Facebook page



Customer service is about the way an employer treats their staff & then how they treat the customer.

This is the template to running a respected business who value their staff & more importantly their customers. This is true for any organisation regardless of size. A small company may make it easier but it is always important regardless of size.

This means, for example, when people explain why they haven't got a ticket for, what is to them, valid reasons it is not 'a sob story' they are treated as a customer with tolerance (even if you are biting you lip - it's your job).

If there are serious problems you have the manpower available to minimise disruption & keep the customers fully informed.

When a train runs late - don't turf off the customers to make up time - if it causes you more problems they are your problems not the customers.

I personally feel First are out of their depth as a customer focused organisation (Ollie close your eyes as you are an oasis in a desert of mediocracy). I feel passengers are not seen as anything other than an incovenient burden.

Remember they are customers not only passengers.

End of Rant

Even outsource Customer Services to SERCO who, in turn, outsourced to India.   Customer service at it's worst.   Customer Service should be close to the front line.

Well, I'm going to commend Serco and their staff based in Plymouth.

Over the past three months I've had 10 cases be open and shut covering a variety of different things including fares, revenue protection, staff feedback, issues and compliments. I've had a 'satisfactory' and reasonably detailed response in 8 of them. Of those 10, 6 have been responded to by the same person who works in Plymouth for Serco - he isn't a manager and I haven't intentionally emailed him. I would say:

• You get a prompt response
• You get a detailed response
• You get a personalised response

Good customer service! Where a person is based has no effect on anything. Their knowledge on the subject matter does, because a person who lives in India may well have the same training as someone in England. It's staff training not location.

I absolutely detest the prejudiced view that an Indian Call centre is bad "because they are Indian".

They may not be bad - just difficult to understand thus making a conversation difficult at times.

I have that problem sometimes with Glasgow!

I had this exact conversation with the ladyfriend trout yesterday. I agree there is a prejudiced view against overseas call centres. Indeed, I myself may have that view at times, particularly when explaining something from an IT Engineers point of view, to someone who is only going by what's on the script.

For example, I have phoned up TalkTalk on behalf of a customer to report what was a blatant BT Line Fault. Yet the chap in the call centre insisted that "He was the technician" and it was impossible for me to determine it was a BT line fault. (Complete lie on both counts). The chap insisted on going through his script which covered the basics of everything I had already checked to complete the tests. Anyway to cut a long story short about 90 minutes later the chap said: "We need to get BT to come and have a look as I think there is a problem with the Telephone Network" HEAD + BRICK WALL!!!

A further example is Three Mobile. Again an Indian Call Centre but are actually a pleasure to talk to and resolve any issues promptly. An example was when I hadn't had the Internet Tariff loaded onto my contract, Que me running up a ^200 bill in less than 3 days (Going back to 2008 though when Cellular Data was very expensive - well more expensive than it is today!) Needless to say the bill was completely nulled and a further credit on my next bill issued by way of an apology, The also corrected the error with my contract.

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I agree there too. Perhaps it's even worse when using the help point at Trowbridge Station to ask when the 17:28 to Frome is going to show itself. Only to be told there were no further trains to Frome that day. He was of course completely wrong. There are 4 direct trains, 5 if you count the change at Westbury option (for the PAD - FRO Direct HST service). Well I soon realised the chap in the call centre had mistaken Frome for Troon............ :o ::) >:( And that's a sod of a place to get to from Trowbridge as it is, considering it's near Glasgow ;D

I once said to a man with a very heavy sub-continental accent, who wasn't really getting the gist of my problem, that it was all very well for him to tell me that from the safety of Mumbai, but it didn't help me. Turned out he was in Birmingham, to my shame.

In my personal experience, Indian call centre operatives are commendably enthusiastic and eager to help - but their ability to do so does seem to be limited by the scripts they are given.

Indeed, the simple fact that the origin station location of the call in the UK is not provided to them when they take the call is why we have the farce of callers from the Melksham help point having to spell out "M e l k s h a m" (or similarly "F r o m e", from thetrout's experience) to someone representing First Great Western in India ...  ::)

I have a lasting monument to the problems with call centres from the days before internet banking.  After paying a VAT bill my statement showed a payment made to "Customers and Exercise"   ???

An English friend of ours married and move to join his new wife in Texas, where he got a job in a local call centre servicing calls from within the state. He told us how one day some chap demanded to speak with his boss, and then complained about him to the boss - suggesting that they should employ people who spoke English properly ;) ... you can't please all the people all the time.

My daughter in law worked in an NHS Direct call centre - in Bristol - for a time. And whilst the calls usually came from within the area, sometimes there were imbalances and they found themselves taking calls from (say) Sheffield.  And she described to me how - with the best will in the world - she couldn't help as quickly and efficiently to talk to the emergency services when it had to be done when she was trying to help make decisions and get things sorted fast in a part of the country she didn't have a personal knowledge of.

I had an operative through one of these Help Points ask, "You are at Seven Bitch?"

Brilliant!!

Similarly again from an IT Background, when I reported a problem with a Laptop Battery. I was told to: "Speak to my IT Manager who will sort out the problem"

Out of all the responses the lady on the phone was expecting... "I am the IT Manager, do you have a Manager I can speak to?" certainly wasn't one of them ;D

That call to get a replacement Laptop Battery sent out took nearly 3 hours. Based on an hourly rate it would've been cheaper to buy a new battery on Next Day Delivery by the time I had finished faffing around... (Polite Version :D ) The battery didn't turn up for nearly a week and when it did, it was addressed to: Mrs IT Manager... Do I really sound like a girl on the phone :P wait... Don't answer that ;D :D ;) :-X

Ah, yes: Her Majesty's Customers and Exercise - before they became just HMRC (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/).  ::)


 ;D

And then there is this... (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/4741017.stm)

I cannot find the original reports which make me think there is more to this than when it happened in 2005... But apparently Mr Lancaster asked for an Overdraft from an overseas call worker at Natwest who declined his request. Afterwards Mr Lancaster was asked to fill out a customer satisfaction survey which he gave the agent a very poor score. Then a Mr C Lancaster .... .... Debit Card arrived.

Indeed, I myself in a previous line of employment nearly did something similar. I was tasked to run off 110 Invoices for some students. It just so happened that the way their names were processed on the accounts system we had one student from Oxford, Who's name began with A and their surname started TASS. Needless to say we then had a student payment reference of: OXFATASS for this poor sod.

I raised this to the Manager who asked me to amend the account reference immediately before sending out the invoices.

Fortunately, I spotted it before the Invoices were sent out. It was nothing more than the way the computer processed the data that had been inputted from a spreadsheet. But had I not have spotted it. Someone would've been asked to make a payment under the reference: OXFATASS. And either not spotted it themselves. Or spotted it and found it amusing or offensive.

I would call the good attention to detail. But I must admit, it did make me chuckle myself that one ;)

I cannot tell you my personal abbreviation the HMRC... But it starts: HM Revenue & ***** (Insert offensive word starting with C of your choice... But we all know which word I'm referring to here, and it's one I never, ever use which shows my displeasure against the HMRC ;) :D )