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Great Western Coffee Shop > All across the Great Western territory > Smoke and Mirrors > The answer is 43, but can you remember the question?
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Author Topic: The answer is 43, but can you remember the question?  (Read 11949 times)
grahame
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« on: January 30, 2020, 22:21:04 »
Does anyone else find it irritating that - when you file an online question and get an acknowledgement - that the acknowledgement does not contain a copy of what you wrote?

It's very rare that I use an online feedback/complaint form, but I did use on on 13th November.  Time had passed when I got an answer on 19th December, and it had even more slipped my mind by this evening (30th January) when I was invited to take part i an ORR» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) survey asking how well it had been handled. I cut and pasted a copy of my responses this time  Grin

Quote
It would be really good if the initial logging of the complaint / request for help included a copy of the text typed in - that way I would have known what the question being answered was when I heard back five weeks later.

As it was - hitchhiker's guide style ...  "the answer is 42" but no-one knows the question!

Thank you for asking.  The handling of this request for help was particularly poor ... and the problem remains.  I gave up ...

It should be ... blindingly obvious ... system design and courtesy to provide people asking questions via online forms to be given a copy of what they ask.  Hint - anyone from GWR▸ (Great Western Railway) reading this?
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patch38
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« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2020, 23:15:32 »
Deep Thought might know. It knew the 'Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything'. That was 42. But 43...?  Grin
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Worcester_Passenger
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« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2020, 05:19:29 »
Completely agree - I've suffered exactly the same experience.
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CyclingSid
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« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2020, 07:20:51 »
It certainly is not limited to just rail or transport. Bad manners as much as anything, or is that showing how old I am?
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Sixty3Closure
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« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2020, 08:51:52 »
Glad its not just me. I got the same email from the ORR» (Office of Rail and Road, formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) about a complaint I'd raised and I had no idea which incident it referred to. I could find the acknowledgement email and it was no help at all.

That was my main piece of feedback along with saying there needs to be a way of aggregating complaints/issues. Assuming it relates to the journey I think it does then I raised 3 issues which ended up being treated separately and in my mind didn't quite capture the overall 'experience'.
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JayMac
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« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2020, 12:49:40 »


https://bigbangtheory.fandom.com/wiki/The_43_Peculiarity
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Adrian
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« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2020, 19:53:30 »
More than once I've received a reply from GWR▸ (Great Western Railway) customer services, and it's taken me a while to work out what it was in response to!
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