Great Western Coffee Shop

There are well documented delays to replies from GWR at the moment, but I was wondering how long I should be waiting for a reply before giving them a nudge?  For example, I sent a compensation letter in mid-December but haven't heard anything - did this even arrive or is it being dealt with?

Just wondering what current expectations for email and letter enquiries are these days?

Best bet, if you are on Twitter, is to ask that question to @GWRHelp. I'm sure they'll know.

I waited almost 3 months for a reply to a pretty basic enquiry - full saga here - happy ending of sorts though!  :)

http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=17573.0

The auto-response is now advising of a wait of up to eight weeks (up from the previously advised three weeks).

See the new thread in Fares Fair about a letter to the Money Section in Saturday's Guardian....you are not alone

A delayed journey in July had its compensation paid in December. Mind you, I didn't chase; I forgot all about it!

Maybe it should work like those penalties where if the compensation isn't paid in the due period it is doubled. Even better doubled every 28 days ...

Have to say that my only claim made was paid up promptly but that was some time ago.

I took your advice and used the twitter thing.
I had an answer within 5 minutes - which was great. The bad news is that my letter from 2nd December has been received and is 'in our backlog'.

 

After about 2 months of silence I escalated my enquiry to Mark Hopwood which at least seemed to get it on the radar & one of his minions updated me from there on in until I finally got a response, so you may like to try that?

And auto response announcing Eight week delays is absolutely appalling Customer service. They've had more than enough time to address this issue. If it's a lack of resource, get some more in.

Customer Support is outsourced. The current problems started last year when the contract was switched to a new supplier. The new supplier failed to deliver as expected. A whole wave of new starters are joining the team next week, which should go some way to resolving the situation. GWR do also have an in-house Customer Support team who deal with the more complex stuff, including the MD correspondence. I'm sure they won't appreciate being referred to as Mark Hopwood's minions!

Of course they did. They're Crapita.


Sufficient to cover those left/leaving because they've found a better employer than Crapita?

As someone who worked for a Business who outsourced some of their customer support to Capita..........and within 18 months took it back again as it was an utter disaster, I wholeheartedly agree with BNM........there is only one reason to do it - cost  - I challenge anyone to find me an organisation whose customer satisfaction ratings have improved since outsourcing to Capita.

I challenge anyone to find me an organisation whose customer satisfaction ratings have improved since outsourcing to anyone! Customer service seems to me to be a core function of any business and should never therefore be outsourced.

Totally agree.

Any company or organisation that out sources its reputation is mad and led by idiots!

Many parts of an organisation can be priced and costed, but no company should seek to put a price on its reputation. If customer service function is not working, get advise, consultants to help, but never out source to an external company.

Other than the issue of cost is there the benefit to companies outsourcing their customer relations of deniability. We are, after all, sat here now blaming Capita for these delays rather than pointing the finger at First Group.
I feel the same could be said about the TOC vs Network Rail debacle. Could TOCs really run things better or is it just more convenient to have someone to blame?

Once it takes beyond a certain time to get replies to customer queries out due to backlog, an organisation's going to be in trouble because even more queries are going to start coming in saying "where's my answer", and any short term expedient of bringing more staff on will be diluted as those staff have to be indoctrinated trained into the mindset and response pattern on the organisation to ensure consistency of message.   Bit of a mess, really.

I have worked for organisations that outsource their purchase contracts through the like of Capita and have found that for us - as a small supplier filling a very specialist niche - such contracts have put us to a considerable amount of extra work, and have added significantly to the workload of our contacts in the parent organisation.   It's also tended to make it harder for us to specify the right tuned product for the end user customer, and in our payment on completion to require both tenacity and patience to obtain. I am very conscious, though, that we are not a typical supplier as we provide one-of courses and the sign of success  is that our customer the know what to do and don't need to re-order from us!

Outsourcing has many benefits, where the function is defined and well monitored, however when things have gone wrong, who do you want salvaging your reputation?

• trained, sympathetic/empathetic member of staff who can address issues quickly, to a point where all are happy
• outsource to an external company, where the staff might be responding to anyone multiple calls via a soft phone (computer) where the screen identified the company this caller is asking about, and the processes guide for dealing with the call?

I know who I'd like to talk to, and it certainly wouldn't be the stressed person who has handled a mobile phone complaint, broadband issue and then been passed to a train customer, and every time they look up they can see a scoreboard listing the total call queue length, numbers waiting by company, and how long till a toilet/coffee break.

 

It doesn't work like that, the FG contract is handled by a dedicated office, with dedicated staff, there is no crossover with other contracts, that would be insane - how would anyone be expected to retain that kind of knowledge?! Even within the FG office there are dedicated teams for the different subcontracts - GWR, TPE & Hull Trains, and within these subcontracts there are dedicated teams for different workstreams - Customer Support, Telesales, Aftersales etc. There is no crossover, each advisor works in a specific team.

I'm not saying it makes it any better, of course it would be better to have an in-house GWR Customer Support team, but that's a First Group decision, but the staff are certainly not shared amongst multiple contracts.

If that's the case, and despite all the "dedicated" resources the service is still appalling, it reflects very badly on GWR and their management's decision to outsource to an organisation which clearly isn't up to it, it could only have been a cost cutting exercise rather than anything in the customer's interest, and I suspect Capita came in with the lowest bid - they generally do, and you generally get what you pay for.

It would be interesting to see the KPIs which where agreed, and the details of any penalties imposed for missing them.

The more that gets escalated to Hopwood, the better, as this will catalyse more assertive action against the supplier to improve performance.

Notwithstanding the outsourcing, GWR need to take it on the chin - a business decision to outsource a function does not absolve the organisation's accountability for delivering it, addressing poor performance with a supplier is an internal matter.

"Building a Greater West" eh?  ::)

By having your Customer Services based in Warrington.  ::)

A little local knowledge can go a long way. But there won't be any of that now that there are no front line GWR Customer Service bods based in the area actually served by GWR's trains.

The previous supplier was based in Mumbai, so it's a little closer! One of the reasons for the change in supplier was that plans were afoot to close the legacy Plymouth contact centre and move the entire operation to Mumbai. The Plymouth office closed anyway, but the operation did at least remain in the UK.

Preston Brook's route knowledge is arguably worse than Mumbai's though!

With a fair percentage of Customer Service staff based in Plymouth.

The majority of passengers and complainants won't know it's outsourced, so will still blame First Group.

Capita's competence is such, that they are making predecessors Serco look good. That takes a hell of a lot of effort in itself!

And they are quite correct to do so.....it's First Group who collect the fares, and provide the service. If they choose to outsource bits of it to Capita on the cheap, they have to face the music when it falls over......you can outsource responsibility, but not accountability.

Absolutely right that's why no company should outsource its customer relations function. Its a core function of any business!

The latest auto-response now offers this guidance...

Suitably vague!

Could someone post Mark Hopwood's email address please as I'm sick to the backteeth of these inadequates.

After two months waiting I received a response to my query over the weekend, which was simply 'when is the next meet the manager session at Paddington as your website only contains dates up to July 2016?'.  Guess what... I've been sent the dates for 2016, which have been cut and pasted off of the website. 

The irony of course is that all I want to do is talk to someone from GWR about how s*** their customer services are.  And this is how they answer it...  Stunning.

Mark.Hopwood@gwr.com

Much appreciated. 

Who would like to take some bets on time taken to respond?

I waited almost 3 months end to end to get a response, I emailed Hopwood directly after approx 2 months, one of his entourage replied a week later, and I got a final reply roughly 3 weeks after that - the excuse at that time was that they had just moved contact centres which was the reason for the delay, however that's several months ago now so hopefully you'll get something more acceptable in say...........3 weeks?

You may also get a gesture by way of an apology for the poor customer service as well, but be careful about revealing it on the forum if you do, some people may take offence!   ;)

I've written to my MP about the current status of GWR's customer services after a 4 month wait for four claims to be processed.

He's now had to chase Mark Hopwood for a reply...

So I received my reply from Mark Hopwoods office today (just shy of 4 weeks, so pretty good).

The reply was apologetic, but non-committal. I still don't know when the next meet-the-manager session is, as these sessions are still being arranged.

Is there still an obligation to hold 25 of these per annum under the revised (current) franchise agreeement?

That'll be easy, even starting later this month