LNER can be a bit patronising. I had cause to tweet both XC and LNER recently and XC were pleasant and helpful and LNER just assumed the air of talking to a very young child.
It may be unfair to single LNER out for this, as I don’t follow too many others, but they do have a habit of being rather dismissive. Virgin West Coast was likewise - I’ve not monitored Avanti more recently.
You can see it in the exchanges from earlier this week with the release of Advances for anything beyond this Friday (26th). They’d posted that they’d be released at 10:00 on Tuesday 23rd.
10:00 comes and goes, and by about 10:03, passengers - naturally concerned given the already exceedingly and almost uniquely short booking horizon - tweet to find out what’s going on. It then goes quite predictably (paraphrased):
Tweeter 1 - it’s gone 10:00 and there are no tickets. Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - No. It takes a while for the website to update
Tweeter 2 - you said 10:00 and there are no tickets. Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - No. It takes a while for the website to update
Tweeter 3 - it’s well after 10:00 and there are no tickets. Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - No. It takes a while for the website to update
Tweeter 4 - I thought you said that I’d be able to book at 10:00 for next week. Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - No. It takes a while for the website to update
Tweeter 5 - it’s 10:15 and there are no tickets. Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - No. It takes a while for the website to update
Tweeter 6 - are the tickets that I can buy on The Trainline the same ones that you’ll be selling? Is there a problem with your website?
LNER - it’s likely
Tweeter 7 - what does that mean?
LNER - yes. But it takes a while for the website to update
.....
LNER - there’s problem with the website. IT are looking into it.
The thing is that, from their own narrow terms of reference, individual customers are often experts in their own habits and the results that they get from them. That means that they do often spot problems before the generalists in the centre do. Dismissing their concerns is risky on that basis.
In this situation, every other TOC and The Trainline was selling the tickets that LNER couldn’t, and with quotas as low as two, experts will have been irritated by LNER not acting on the early warnings that they were being given and booked elsewhere, and non-experts will have held on and potentially been stuck with a higher fare when the LNER site was finally fixed.