Complaint
I've never written a letter of complaint. In the past, perhaps I might've expressed (to a handful of companies) my mild annoyance but I'm not the type of person who sends food back if I don't like how it tastes. I don't take part in Have Your Say's, and I rarely fill out feedback forms.Today though, I just couldn't help it because their company really ticked me off.
To: "nxea.websupport@nationalexpress.com"
Hello,
I just rang up your department to say that your system jumped back a date when I made my booking, and that this is the second (maybe third) time it's happened. ALL I wanted was to change dates. That's it. That's all I wanted. Really. I didn't want to get into any arguments. I didn't want to have to write this letter. I definitely didn't want to have to abandon whatever loyalty I had left for you.
Instead, what I got was a rude member of staff who immediately launched a defensive (first thing every morning, I always look forward to speaking with a crotchety lady who clearly needs HRT). I was told that essentially, it was my fault, that this NEVER happens and I can't do anything apart from book another ticket. I basically got asked to pay for your mistake. However, unfortunately for you, I'm not about to waste more money on you and neither will I continue to be held hostage by your ridiculous monopoly of the East Anglian rail services.
In fact, I might just start driving so I can be held hostage by petrol prices instead.
My point is this - after using NE rail services regularly, I will now cease to because of the poor customer service. In fact, calling your team Web Support is a bit of a misnomer isn't it, since I didn't get any support at all.
Now, at this juncture, it wouldn't be out of place for me to say that I'm also going to tell others of my experiences and discourage them from travelling with you. However, from what I already hear, your lack of good time-keeping and poor customer service is already well-known. Stupidly, when I heard the aforementioned bad reviews about you, I thought it was just skewed media reporting (again! It's always the media!) so I chose to ignore them and keep my faith in you, and even defend you...was I wrong and naïve to do that!
You wonder why your companies are losing money? Simple - poor value for money coupled with poor train and customer service. Your toilets lack regular cleaning. Your 'quiet' carriages are not enforced. Trains aren't regular enough. You surprise travellers with rail replacement services, thereby negating the promise and expectation of arriving on time, on a TRAIN, which we PAY for - if I wanted to go on a bus, I would book a BUS TICKET. The list goes on but I don't have time to go through it with you because I should be doing some work at the moment.
I, for one, am glad your East Coast division are being nationalised. Maybe (I dare to hope) East Anglia will soon follow suit. Then we can all blame the govt for your existing inefficiency...after all, we already blame them for everything else.
And by the way, there ARE problems with your new system (e.g. plenty of dead links) so no, changing IT providers (as your wet tissue customer service rep Angela claims was the solution) really did not help.
Sad thing is, you probably paid way over the odds for a shiny new layout that's even more confusing and the website is now much slower to load. And I'm not even a technophobe!
Please sort yourselves out. Case in point, your coach division are far more POLITE and efficient than your rude train staff, and it makes all the difference.
In fact, your coach division have never been anything but that (polite). The drivers are always friendly, always accommodating and sometimes very entertaining. The customer service department there are polite, patient, sincere and considerate to the T - even when it's been my fault, they've never launched an attack or sought to blame me.
Even when they messed up my NX2 card four or five times, I never got annoyed once because of how they handled the whole situation. Politely and quickly. That's why I'm still happy to use them. In fact, I can't sing praises for them highly and loudly enough (can't you tell, I'm a fan). When I'm loyal, I'm loyal.
However, with ONE phone call, your IT department has managed to prompt me to write the longest (and only) letter of complaint I have ever written. Using my phone, no less. Well done, another accolade under your belt (though somehow I doubt you'll be advertising this one).
Notice how I keep pointing out POLITE? Perhaps you lot on the train side should take a page out of the coach division's customer service training manual...god knows just that would be an improvement.
Regards,
A very unhappy and formerly (naïvely) loyal NE customer,
Elena "oh look, another automated response" xxxxx
Labels: complaint
