Great Western Coffee Shop

I've had "sales training".  At the time I thought it to be rather less important than knowing my product but many years later I keep coming back to the lessons.   One of which was "not features but benefits".   Don't tell people about the technical features of the product and leave out what that means for them - in fact the benefits are more important than the features.

From a long post of mine in Frequent Posters, with half a dozen learning points, this one is worth public airing.


At Chippenham Station yesterday, the 15:29 to Westbury was showing with a departure on time until about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave.   Then it was announced "We are sorry that the 15:29 to Westbury is cancelled due to a train fault".  But no suggestion of what people should do ....

Dad managed a team of over 100 people and had to say "no" to requests sometimes, and advised in these circumstances:
* Express Regret
* Give Reason
* Suggest Alternative
and GWR's announcement singularly misses out the "Suggest Alternative" - it's just the features not the benefits

Why doesn't the announcement carry on to suggest alternatives?   As it is, it smacks of the rail industry internal system explaining itself and it shows no care for the customers left stranded / inconvenienced.   What's needed ... "Passenger for Trowbridge and Westbury should take the train to Bath and change there; your ticket will be valid today via that route. Pasengers for Melksham please ask in the booking office of at the staff office on the platform and they will make alternative arrangements"

I gather from a contact in the Coach industry, arranging alternative transport is very disjointed and slow process, so whilst it might seem a logic in the cancellation to get alternative transport this may take longer than the next train.
Station manager contacts gwr control, gwr control contacts their road transport provider- currently another division of First, First Travel Solutions (FTS), FTS then contact local operators, local operator then gets vehicles and staff to the station which may take time unless they've staff on standby.
It may be the staff don't know what's happening immediately to make suggestions. 

Completely agree!  I have had the pleasure of pointing out to people that even if the next train's over an hour away, it may be far more logical than to source alternative road transport - taking 30 minutes to arrive, 5 minutes to load and 20 minutes longer for the journey ... arriving at destination just before next train.


Yuk.


Agreed - but "Would intending passengers please wait for a further announcement while we work out what the best alternative is for you" should be a minimum

By the way ... if the 15:29's cancelled, passengers for Trowbridge and Westbury should take the 15:44 and change at Bath Spa, and for Melksham should (but he may not accept your ticket!) catch the 15:51 bus.   Both much slower than the 15:29, but will still get you there before the 17:53 would.