Great Western Coffee Shop

Does anyone have an email address for A Haines or amy other senior managers at FGW, have a serious complaint that I feel may get brushed under the carpet if I go through the normal channels.
Happy for it to be PM`d if appropriate

forename.surname @ firstgroup.com

Andrew Haines no longer works for FGW, Mark Hopwood is the MD.

You'd be well advised to go through the "official channels", i.e. FGW customer relations, in the first instance. If that doesn't get you any joy, then you might consider an appeal complaint to Passenger Focus or a more direct approach at that point.

Bear in mind that the senior managers at FGW are likely to get all sorts of grievances, gripes and complaints landing in their email every day, and I would bet that these are intercepted and sent off to customer relations rather than being dealt with by the person you emailed.

Welcome to the Coffee Shop forum, heron!  :)

I'd also suggest that you contact FGW customer services (http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=111) initially: if you're not satisfied with their response, then you can escalate it.

agree with the above posts emailing any director/senior manager will probably prove pointless as they more than likely have them redirected to spam/tras folders or the customer relations.

also andrew haines is no longer with the company mark hopwood took over his position.

just out of interest are you able to share your complaint on here?

May also be useful to attend a meet the manager session if any are held near you in the future

I'd love to meet Melksham's station manager. I really would.

I'd invite him to meet me on the platform at Melksham at any time on a weekday between 8am and 6pm and then photograph him turning up by car....

Like Chris, I would suggest "normal channels" first.  If you feel that your complaint has indeed been brushed under the carpet as you anicipate (or if you feel it's taking an inordinate time to get an answer), you'll then be in a very much stronger position if you (have to) get in touch with a senior manager.

I've have been agreeably surprised by the time and trouble First Great Western managers over the years have gone to to reply to letters written to them on substantive issues - I know both of the two predecessors of the current MD took great care and a great pride in answering or in getting an answer through to me.  It's become harder for me to comment on how general letters "out of the blue" are handled these days, as messages from me might be recognised as being from a known person even as they land in an inbox, and will certainly refer to existing discussions within.

Not FGW, but I had a billing "issue" with BT that their "World-wide" call centres could not grasp or deal with, so I blasted an email off to Ian Livingston, top-dog at BT.  I had a very quick reply from his PA saying she would forward it to their Higher Level Complaints asap (coincidently in Swindon :D) and the matter was shortly resolved.  While I don't think FGW has "higher level complaints" I concur that initially try Customer Services, but if that brings no joy, keep going up the ladder until you get a response that appeases your concerns.

We do in some respect, we have a team that will deal with complex cases. So it is similar to the "higher level complaints"

DON'T even get me started on BT's Far East Call Centre's billing department... >:( >:( I could not make them understand that I had 2 direct debits going out of my current account to the same account on there systems... So I cancelled them both and set one up again, week later, large bill comes through the post for an account number i didn't recognise... :o Well it turned out they were still charging me for a service at my previous address >:( Some little escapade that went on for 6 months and I am still trying to resolve... One of my friends suggests (and works for) that I report the matter to OfCom ::)

Rant over... I'm sorry... But just seeing the letters BT makes my blood boil...! >:(

Quite outrageous. Simply appalling. Et cetera. ;D

Just be grateful you weren't dealing with NTL (or ntl: as they liked to write it) circa 2004. I think in the course of one phone call (which took more than 2 hours) I spoke to ten people, none of whom were able to render any kind of assistance at all... I'm not going to go off on one here, but since then even BT silliness has seemed like bliss in comparison.

I'll echo the thoughts of previous posters to this thread. I go through the usual channels when commenting on FGW services, and have always been happy with the responses, although the time taken to respond does miff me occasionally.

The one time I went straight to the organ grinder (James Burt, Customer Service Director- no longer in FGW employ), with a specific complaint, I was pleasantly surprised at the personal attention I got - a personal call, and a prolonged chat helped resolve the issues I'd raised.

In summary, go through the proper channels, but if you feel that you are getting nowhere, then a good old fashioned letter to FGW towers in Swindon can yield a suitable resolution.