Handling of negative feedback

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Sad to see this as the 6th most read item on the Wiltshire Times web site ...

http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/11230204.Trains_are_rubbish/?ref=mr

... very curious report that doesn't quite jell as to my knowledge the only people who arrived at the station and left when they learned that the train was cancelled were in a car.   I suspect that Mr and Mrs Colman drove from the nearby Portman Road and were too embarrassed to admit that in a letter to the editor.   Having found that that train was cancelled and replaced by a taxi, and having planned it as a rail adventure, I can understand them simply driving on to Swindon.

The cancellation / replacement of the first two round trips by buses on 18th was very unfortunate indeed - note also the negative feedback on the TransWilts Facebook page from, perhaps, an armchair critic who wasn't actually inconvenienced.   I have taken the view (from the CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) / Press and Publicity) viewpoint that electronic criticisms of this type should be answered in the same thread, but that printed pieces in the local newspapers should simply be left to fade out rather than stirring up controversy a week or two later after it's been forgotten.   Positive stories placed instead 

I could have answered fire with fire (like "if you found a road closed one day, would you swear never to use it again and say the the people who run the roads are rubbish") ... but there's no point in being provoked in public!

[LiskeardRich]

Her last line

, more likely it^ll be by taxi

suggests to me she was offered a taxi, to know to put that line into context of the letter. It does contradict the rest of her letter to anyone who reads your comment then re-reads her letter and has mentioned the taxi.

As a side note this was your 10000th post Grahame!