Great Western Coffee Shop

All, I'm looking for the name of someone i can contact in FGW regarding communications when things go badly wrong - such as yesterday (Friday 7/August/2015). I'm not looking for someone to moan at - I want to try and have a constructive dialogue with them.

I'd rather not go through the normal customer services route - I would like to do something more direct.

Many thanks in advance

Dave

Customer services are set up to handle individual customer issues and are tuned for that - be they phone, email, twitter or Facebook (or post ...).   Looking wider to talk about systemic issues, user groups, customer panel, transport focus, rail partnership and meet the manager sessions (on coming up on 13th have their place.   Meetings / organisations like TravelWatch consolidate those interactions too.  But there's such a volume of passengers, and the rail system is so complex that the average user doesn't follow all the nuances (and looks at his/her service in isolation), and to some extent these alternative routes have to be efficient by consolidating all the inputs through groups / one of the routes I mentioned above.

Is there a user group in your area (it strikes me as odd that we have such groups for the little services but often not for the big ones!) and what are your objectives in having the dialogue / what outcome to you want?  Sorry to answer a question with a  question is some ways - there are ways of making inputs but there are also gaps; ways can be found if they're not "same old thing we know but can't do much about yet"  and good business ideas, but the professionals have come up with many (but my no means all) the ideas.

Thanks for your reply Graham.

I'm very conscious of when events such as signalling problems (such as yesterday) occur it has a negative impact on the perception of the FGW brand. I suspect that there may not be much FGW can do in terms of mitigating this but the one area I feel they could improve on communications and we have discussed this at length on this forum.

What I was looking to achieve was to find a channel to discuss (with FGW) how this could be improved with input from customers who are prepared to discuss this constructively. Your suggestion of working with a travel group in my area is a good one. I have had no experience of working with these but maybe that is a good reason to start. What I was trying to avoid was working with any organisation which feels it's place is to beat the likes of FGW with a big stick as I'm not convinced what that achieves.

Being an IT guy I'm aware of the progress that has made on communication through smart phone/tablet  based apps and social networking but my feeling is a company shouldn't reliant on those 100% to reach their customer base because:

1) Not everyone has access to these delivery platforms -I reckon on last nights SWT service maybe 70% of the 13year + passengers did. Out of the remaining 30% I would suggest that it is split into those who choose not to embrace the newer technologies and those who feel unable to for what ever reason.

2) The human touch goes along way (even if it just a voice keeping people updated). There was an occasion on Reading last night where there was a female member of the FGW team who kept customers in a specific area of the station informed and when she announced an service had been made available to get people home on the B&H line she was showered with much appreciation. I wish I had have time to get her name because I would have sent a positive communication to FGW

Sorry for my rambling answer. As we have often said there are a lot of really good people within the FGW world and I thing it would be good to find a way of helping them to help us

Regards

Dave

Could there be a list of such groups somewhere on this forum?

That is indeed a useful suggestion (but I was going to google anyway)

Try http://www.railfuture.org.uk/Rail+User+Groups ... link to list of national groups.

also take a look at

http://www.transportfocus.org.uk/help/user-group-advice

http://www.railfuture.org.uk/National+Directorates+and+Officers

Great links, many thanks

Your post was - in my view - raising something hugely important - but a very difficult subject. The sentiment of the passenger is something which can do so much for the success or otherwise of the transport system and the effective harnessing of the positive sentiment in an effective way is something that has come forward leaps and bounds over the last 10 years. Forgive me talking in what will sound like riddles; there's so much width in the generality that I find it hard to be clear in the specifics.

Something to address further ... though I'm exhausted this afternoon, after an illustration of the changes I have seen over the years.  Contrast 10 years ago this month when I first personally got involved, hitting my fists against a door I had been told had been locked closed for 10 years because few knew it existed and used it, to today travelling on an 8 carriage train passing that door with a loading of up to 350 passengers.  Good for them, good for us because we have a service, good for the railway because it helps their finances and good for the future because (I estimate) around 80 of those passengers were essentially on their first train trip in many a long while or ever.  But this requires pragmatism, co-operation, customer care, trust and respect between the groups and is just a tiny cog in the wheel.

The communication at Swindon was very good. At least three members of staff at the top of the stairs on platform 4, helping passengers (or at least giving them information), and handing out ^5 refreshment vouchers at the same time.