Great Western Coffee Shop

Did anyone else have problems buying their season ticket today at reading? This morning I qued for 25 mins then to be told by a very hassled customer sevice person that he could only sell me a ticket for today or at best a 1 weeker! I was furious, not that they had a system problem, but the fact that they didn't bother to tell any of us who were all waiting in the line. Why do customer Service staff have such a problem with keeping us informed?

Had they let us know, I could have got a ticket from the fast service machines and not have missed my early train.

SWT have a news item that their ticket system failed this morning and that seasons couldn't be renewed - I wonder if it was more widespread than just their own system?

Paul

It does sound like it is more wide spread. The thing that gets me, is they do know that today would be very busy for Season tickets, they just never seem prepared, and they don't tell people whats going on. then when you do flag it up to them the customer service clerks get agitated with us.

you would think they want to give service to those of us who use the trains regurly and thus season ticket holders, but they don't.

Were there spare staff walking about?

If not its probably a case of the staff getting aggitated at snotty commuters ranting at them. Its not their fault however i've seen many "commuter type" who are arrogant towards any form of railway staff.

Now of course, i'm sure thats just the minority however no doubt it gets on the nerves of front line staff.

When i spoke to the dispatch Supervisor, he also agreed that they should be letting people know the situation and he had mentioned it himself to the customer service supervisor. At no point did I get "snotty" nor was i arrogant, having done customer services in the past, I wouldn't dream of it, however the attitude of the member of staff I spoke to at the window managed to wind me up and although I chose to walk away, I could imagine his attitude would have aggitated others.

Customer Service Advisors should not take out their problems on the customers and they are actually there to serve us. (or perhaps thats not in the job discription!)

This got a mention on Radio Berkshire traffic news.

I picked it up DRIVING to Southamton!.

The saga continued last night, as of course we all qued up again to try and get our season tickits. Those of us who were lucky enough to have either our tickets from the days travel or a reciept, if we spoke to the right person we got a refund. I was really lucky the lady I was buying from, just told me to put my card in the machine and she did the refund there and then. however others were not so lucky and their Customer Service advisers were completing forms, and did not seem to know the protocols.

Having spoken to people in the line last night (one of them being a lady I had advised of the situation in the morning) all agreed, we could accept the system problem, after all these things happen, but what we were all hacked off about was the lack of communication yesterday morning, making us que for nothing and miss trains, and also the other bone of contention was the fact some people had been advised of the possability of refunds but not others.

Getting a refund on tickets from the ticket machine would be more complicated and you wouldn't have been refunded by the ticket office, nor (I think) have had their cost deducted from your season ticket cost. A separate refund would have had to be applied for - so in the long run, you probably did save yourself some time / hassle.....