GWR’s compensation scheme is all delay and no repay

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

I'm possibly going to regret posting this, but ... 

All three of the administrators of the Coffee Shop forum will be attending a Great Western Railway Community Rail conference in Barnstaple on Friday 16 June 2017.

We will be meeting with a number of senior staff from Great Western Railway during the day, and will be able to ask them directly about any such issues.

This particular topic is one which I shall raise with Mark Hopwood, for example.

If anyone else has any GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) issues which remain unresolved, please do add them to the relevant topic here on the Coffee Shop forum, and I'm sure that either grahame, bobm or I will be able to give a suitable nudge to the appropriate member of senior GWR management at the conference.

Chris/Graham- what's the feedback on this topic from Hopwood/the Conference? Thanks.

[ChrisB]

I left topics brought up on the forum to be discussed by the mods attending...i'm sure one will be along soon :-)

[grahame]

I left topics brought up on the forum to be discussed by the mods attending...i'm sure one will be along soon :-)

Indeed.  There's no lock on this topic, and you were there too ChrisB, so you too are very welcome to comment on this - especially as you're the one who started this topic on the forum.  What did you learn?

I was very much on "TransWilts" duty in Barnstaple, which gave me more than plenty to do / talk about / raise, including running a "market place" stall. During general sessions, encouraging and looking after customers / passengers and the fabulous numbers from the smaller lines was very much to the fore, but the lack of capacity and plans to deal with that were very much to the fore.  Compensation for delay / cancellation and how long it's taking didn't arise at that level; not really surprising as "Community Rail" is very much about the lines and stations which are said to benefit most from community input, which are the lines and stations with relatively little traffic, rather than the main trunk lines.  And it's on those main trunk lines that the larger numbers of such claims will come in should (for example) there be a signalling fault that's hard to fix.

[ChrisB]

I did leave everything on here as I had my own business to attend to, too.

But I did speak to the Director probably in overall control of this contract, and will follow up on Monday

[t0m]

I am on the edge of my seat waiting to hear what was discussed

[TaplowGreen]

Any news yet? (As an aside, GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are now refusing to give an ETA for replies to correspondence sent via email).

[TaplowGreen]

I did leave everything on here as I had my own business to attend to, too.

But I did speak to the Director probably in overall control of this contract, and will follow up on Monday

I'm beginning to fear that the feedback on this topic is going to take almost as long as a reply from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)!........................

[ChrisB]

holiday season apparently, there will be a delay

[grahame]

But I did speak to the Director probably in overall control of this contract, and will follow up on Monday

holiday season apparently, there will be a delay

Thank you, ChrisB ... but you didn't tell us which Monday 

Compensation for delay, and time taken by customer service, is not such a key factor to most of our customers on the TranWilts or indeed (I believe) on other community rail lines. It's much more an area of concern to longer distance travellers, and passengers on busy commuter routes. As the conference was about community rail, it was no surprise that the topic wasn't centre stage in Barnstaple.  I was personally chasing up lack of capacity and very long delays / gaps in services when things go wrong.  If you miss the ten past three, no train until twenty to six ... if a couple of trips are cancelled, service doesn't start until lunchtime. I'm afraid these things took my personal priority.

I do look forward to hearing from ChrisB some Monday or other, and there are other who's memory this thread may job who I believe raised the question.

[TaplowGreen]

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/16/gwr-customer-service-struggling-train-ticket-refunds

[NickB]

The interesting thing for me here is that there is now a precedent for handing out free tickets as a good will gesture when GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) fall below standards.  I'll be pushing for this on every customer query that takes them months to resolve.

"You were also sent a letter of apology and two first-class complimentary tickets by way of a goodwill gesture."

"It has apologised, issued a refund for the £23.70 and, as a gesture of goodwill, given you a standard class ticket for use anywhere on its network"

[ChrisB]

They've been doing that for years.....good luck in asking.

[TaplowGreen]

The interesting thing for me here is that there is now a precedent for handing out free tickets as a good will gesture when GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) fall below standards.  I'll be pushing for this on every customer query that takes them months to resolve.

"You were also sent a letter of apology and two first-class complimentary tickets by way of a goodwill gesture."

"It has apologised, issued a refund for the £23.70 and, as a gesture of goodwill, given you a standard class ticket for use anywhere on its network"

The trick seems to be to get through to the Fuhrerbunker directly.....I heard nothing other than the usual "Manana" platitudes from the usual sources for a couple of months, when I emailed Hopwood direct with a whisper of going to the Press I had an apology & two 1st class Anytime, any destination returns from one of his glamorous assistants within a week.....

[t0m]

The trick seems to be to get through to the Fuhrerbunker directly.....I heard nothing other than the usual "Manana" platitudes from the usual sources for a couple of months, when I emailed Hopwood direct with a whisper of going to the Press I had an apology & two 1st class Anytime, any destination returns from one of his glamorous assistants within a week.....

Right.. I've gone and done it. Let's see if my quest for void day compensation is finally answered !

[t0m]

Still not a peep from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) and I've escalated to Transport Focus.

Meanwhile.. GWR have sneaked out 2 new void days on 5 and 6 July on HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) and LTV^▸ (London [and] Thames Valley) services. Yet more fun to have claiming those..