Railway social media

[Glasgowbusguy]

So looking at Twitter some TOCs get this spot on scotrail are a great example of doing it well with an engaging and funny group . We stan Megan and stu
Northern are a good example to there informal / formal mix seems to work well

Transpennine are an example of the meh category they split there twitter's between 2 handles , both are very information heavy but very little personality


Then we have the worst southern there official Twitter has been dormant since 2015 , every search for them bring up bad news story's or Indian railways


Social media is a must now a days in the world we live in.

How can the bad companies improve and how can the good companies stay good l.

 

[skyhigh]

Then we have the worst southern there official Twitter has been dormant since 2015

How do you come to that conclusion? They've tweeted multiple times today.

https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK

 

[Hadders]

Social media teams don’t need to be hip, funny or trendy.

What they do need to do is give accurate information. Sadly we often don’t see this.

 

[STINT47]

My local TOC EMR are active on social media but frequently give incorrect information out especially when it comes to fare advice.

Examples include:-

Telling someone that a supper off peak return is only valid on the train the customer booked a reservation for.

Advising that a break of journey cannot be made on the outbound journey, break of journeys can only be done on the return part.

GIving incorrect restriction times for ticket meaning a customer didn't travel on a train they're ticket was perfectly valid for.

Strangley enough most of the time the incorrect information disadvantages the customer. You very really see a post that gives the customer more rights/benefits.

I wouldn't personally ask then for any information as I have no faith in their ability to get it right. It's probably a lack of training rather than a deliberate conspiracy but frankly if you need help you'd be better off asking the cat.

 

[fkofilee]

I worked on the GTR Twitter machine for a small period...
The quality of the response does matter... LNER are great from what I've seen.
GTR have a long way to go...

 

[SuperNova]

My local TOC EMR are active on social media but frequently give incorrect information out especially when it comes to fare advice.

Examples include:-

Telling someone that a supper off peak return is only valid on the train the customer booked a reservation for.

Advising that a break of journey cannot be made on the outbound journey, break of journeys can only be done on the return part.

GIving incorrect restriction times for ticket meaning a customer didn't travel on a train they're ticket was perfectly valid for.

Strangley enough most of the time the incorrect information disadvantages the customer. You very really see a post that gives the customer more rights/benefits.

I wouldn't personally ask then for any information as I have no faith in their ability to get it right. It's probably a lack of training rather than a deliberate conspiracy but frankly if you need help you'd be better off asking the cat.

Part of the issue is that people expect an instant reply and often don't put the correct detail so an easy answer cannot be given. Added to that, social media staff won't be the fountain of knowledge that people expect and replies with correct information takes time.

 

[AlterEgo]

Part of the issue is that people expect an instant reply and often don't put the correct detail so an easy answer cannot be given. Added to that, social media staff won't be the fountain of knowledge that people expect and replies with correct information takes time.

That's alright, but very often the wrong advice is given on railway social media channels. Any SM officer being asked "is my ticket valid to..." should be asked "could you show us your ticket/DM us your booking conformation?"

I have personally seen hundreds of examples of bad, costly replies to passengers.

 

[SuperNova]

That's alright, but very often the wrong advice is given on railway social media channels. Any SM officer being asked "is my ticket valid to..." should be asked "could you show us your ticket/DM us your booking conformation?"

I have personally seen hundreds of examples of bad, costly replies to passengers.

Not my point... but you are correct.

 

[moleman212]

I've never bothered looking back at LNER's Twitter since they appeared so far up their own posterior at times... This is going back a few years when they still had that 'Virgin' personality....

 

[Horizon22]

Social media teams do indeed vary. Some are happy to put out lots of detailed information about delays and incidents (Southeastern and GTR [via their brands] spring to mind here) with broadcasts. Some put more headline information out (GWR / Scotrail) only.

What you don't see is the lots of direct messages that the teams send out daily. They are mostly co-located with Control teams, but they might not always get the information straight away from the operational side of control who are busy dealing with an incident / arranging crew / making service alterations / on the phone to signallers, drivers etc. And as with any railway information, situations can be fluid and change very suddenly, so it is hard to get perfect. And some teams are better at being more correct than others, especially for matters such as ticketing and fares.

It is odd to me that social media teams at some TOCs are not yet 24/7, especially how much it is utilised these days. And the quality of info and speed that you might get via a tweet at 1am versus the help point...

Social media teams don’t need to be hip, funny or trendy.

What they do need to do is give accurate information. Sadly we often don’t see this.

Sometimes they are seen as an extension of the marketing team, not the control or communications team. This I imagine causes some tension on what the channel is supposed to be used for which may blunt its effectiveness.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

How do you come to that conclusion? They've tweeted multiple times today.

https://twitter.com/SouthernRailUK

There twitter doesn't show up when searched for

Social media teams don’t need to be hip, funny or trendy.

What they do need to do is give accurate information. Sadly we often don’t see this.

The issue is the do engagement is the name of the game and being personable , funny etc is a huge driver of that engagement

 

[HuggyB87]

During disruption, communication with passengers is key as it helps alleviate uncertainty, anxiety and frustration. Due to the lack of specific disruption explanations at stations (what use is a CIS board that says sorry) we turn to our phone to look for a time; a time to be on the move - thats where social media can play its part, but we live in a world where we need answers straight away - my phone can tell me its going to rain in 10 minutes, but it can't tell me when the next train to Scarbrough is during disruption.

Communication as a whole is such a massive thing for the railway, and social media is one of the main entrances to that world, so its essential that its right from the start.

 

[Davester50]

Social media teams don’t need to be hip, funny or trendy.

What they do need to do is give accurate information. Sadly we often don’t see this.

Very much this.
I've been stuck in large disruption events on the East Coast under Virgin days and just want information, not a top gif game.

 

[Horizon22]

There twitter doesn't show up when searched for


The issue is the do engagement is the name of the game and being personable , funny etc is a huge driver of that engagement

What are you searching for? Can't see how you'd miss it.

I typed "southern rail" into Twitter and it was the 1st hit; on google "southern rail twitter" was the first hit too. Their website has a full link to it - https://www.southernrailway.com/help-and-support/contact-us/twitter

 

[skyhigh]

There twitter doesn't show up when searched for

You can't be searching very hard. 'Southern rail' works fine on Twitter, or alternatively 'Southern rail twitter' on Google also brings it up as the first result!

The issue is the do engagement is the name of the game and being personable , funny etc is a huge driver of that engagement

I don't really buy that. The vast majority of queries are issues customers are facing when travelling. Nobody is going to look at a train company on Twitter and go 'you know, they have a really engaging Twitter account, I'll use their trains' - but if they have an issue and get timely good quality help that will encourage repeat business.

 

[Surreytraveller]

I worked on the GTR Twitter machine for a small period...
The quality of the response does matter... LNER are great from what I've seen.
GTR have a long way to go...

There is no training at GTR. They just make it up as they go along, and get it wrong a lot of the time

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

What are you searching for? Can't see how you'd miss it.

I typed "southern rail" into Twitter and it was the 1st hit; on google "southern rail twitter" was the first hit too. Their website has a full link to it - https://www.southernrailway.com/help-and-support/contact-us/twitter

I searched southern trains , that got me the south Indian railway

Southern trains got me a parody page

 

[Surreytraveller]

R

I searched southern trains , that got me the south Indian railway

Southern trains got me a parody page

Rail, not trains. Although GTR would like to rule more than it does

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

You can't be searching very hard. 'Southern rail' works fine on Twitter, or alternatively 'Southern rail twitter' on Google also brings it up as the first result!

I don't really buy that. The vast majority of queries are issues customers are facing when travelling. Nobody is going to look at a train company on Twitter and go 'you know, they have a really engaging Twitter account, I'll use their trains' - but if they have an issue and get timely good quality help that will encourage repeat business.

You can't be searching very hard. 'Southern rail' works fine on Twitter, or alternatively 'Southern rail twitter' on Google also brings it up as the first result!

I don't really buy that. The vast majority of queries are issues customers are facing when travelling. Nobody is going to look at a train company on Twitter and go 'you know, they have a really engaging Twitter account, I'll use their trains' - but if they have an issue and get timely good quality help that will encourage repeat business.

See your misunderstanding basic human psychology , more and more studies are showing that a positive interaction online , even laughing at a post or a feel good post has a huge effect on how people feel about brands ,

Great example of this comes from my time in food retail
M&S have done DNA tests on all it's meat since the early 2000s
When they ran a 2 million pound in-store , offline media promotion of this , they managed to boost sales in the linked departments by 9%.
However this increase dropped off within 6 months
The following year the done the campaign as online only spending 50k on buying ads , this increased sales in the linked departments by 36%. This increase became near permanent.

The in-store surveys also showed a that more customers had seen the online posts then had noticed the in-store and print media campaign from the previous year .

An engaging, witty , instresting social media presence is a near free way to boost customer perceptions and improve sales

 

[Surreytraveller]

See your misunderstanding basic human psychology , more and more studies are showing that a positive interaction online , even laughing at a post or a feel good post has a huge effect on how people feel about brands ,

Great example of this comes from my time in food retail
M&S have done DNA tests on all it's meat since the early 2000s
When they ran a 2 million pound in-store , offline media promotion of this , they managed to boost sales in the linked departments by 9%.
However this increase dropped off within 6 months
The following year the done the campaign as online only spending 50k on buying ads , this increased sales in the linked departments by 36%. This increase became near permanent.

The in-store surveys also showed a that more customers had seen the online posts then had noticed the in-store and print media campaign from the previous year .

An engaging, witty , instresting social media presence is a near free way to boost customer perceptions and improve sales

Probably M&S marketing department asking leading questions to prove a point to protect their jobs

 

[45107]

There is no training at GTR. They just make it up as they go along, and get it wrong a lot of the time

Quiet a claim to make.
Can you provide substantial evidence of this ?
or it just an accusation because they don’t give you a reply you agree with ?

I have no connection with GTR but am interested in how you come to this conclusion

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

Probably M&S marketing department asking leading questions to prove a point to protect their jobs

No actually as they are not involved in the store surveys.

The store surveys fall under the stores management team and they run all year round with little or no change

The stores team and marketing don't tend to get on that we'll , as marketing thinks up all these ideas and the stores team then has to find the money to fund them in-store from there fixed staffing budget e.g. marketing design a new piece of decor , that decor takes 1 hour to implement, so across 680 stores the stores team has to find 680 hours or more 7k to fund based on a customer assistant making £10.25 an hour , doing the job but in reality that job is going to be done by a section co making £11 an hour as it's new. and because it's new it's gonna take 2 hours as stores don't have consistent footage , space or equipment (e.g.flat fridge Vs curved fridge)

 

[Surreytraveller]

No actually as they are not involved in the store surveys.

The store surveys fall under the stores management team and they run all year round with little or no change

Replace marketing department with stores management, then

 

[BJames]

My local TOC EMR are active on social media but frequently give incorrect information out especially when it comes to fare advice.

Examples include:-

Telling someone that a supper off peak return is only valid on the train the customer booked a reservation for.

Advising that a break of journey cannot be made on the outbound journey, break of journeys can only be done on the return part.

GIving incorrect restriction times for ticket meaning a customer didn't travel on a train they're ticket was perfectly valid for.

Strangley enough most of the time the incorrect information disadvantages the customer. You very really see a post that gives the customer more rights/benefits.

I wouldn't personally ask then for any information as I have no faith in their ability to get it right. It's probably a lack of training rather than a deliberate conspiracy but frankly if you need help you'd be better off asking the cat.

Quite. I asked on these forums a while ago about super off peak validity over the Christmas period - EMR was incorrect about their validity (despite gateline staff at St Pancras confirming a notice had been sent round to all staff...) and they were incredibly unhelpful - truly had no idea what was going on. LNER on the other hand answered completely correctly and were really helpful, it really shouldn't be difficult.

 

[Horizon22]

I searched southern trains , that got me the south Indian railway

Southern trains got me a parody page

Fair enough on the former (Twitter's search algorithm is oddly specific, probably for good reason) although I still found their account.

On google though even replacing rail with "trains" (as per my search above) brings the account up front and centre.

 

[dosxuk]

An engaging, witty , instresting social media presence is a near free way to boost customer perceptions and improve sales

That may be the case with supermarkets, but not with the natural monopolies like transport providers.

Round here I can walk to Aldi, Lidl, Farm Foods, Asda, Coop, Spar, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and M&S. I could go to any of them, based on what I'm after, how I feel about those shops or many other factors.

I also have a choice of train operator. East Midlands, Transpennine, Northern and Cross Country. I chose them based on where I want to go. It doesn't matter if I think any of them are over-priced incompetents with zero idea of how to operate a train service - if I want to go where I want I'm stuck with them. And it doesn't matter how amusing, engaging or competent their social media teams are, I'll only ever look there when something goes wrong, and silly games or attempts at "engagement" are just irritants in that circumstance.

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

That may be the case with supermarkets, but not with the natural monopolies like transport providers.

Round here I can walk to Aldi, Lidl, Farm Foods, Asda, Coop, Spar, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and M&S. I could go to any of them, based on what I'm after, how I feel about those shops or many other factors.

I also have a choice of train operator. East Midlands, Transpennine, Northern and Cross Country. I chose them based on where I want to go. It doesn't matter if I think any of them are over-priced incompetents with zero idea of how to operate a train service - if I want to go where I want I'm stuck with them. And it doesn't matter how amusing, engaging or competent their social media teams are, I'll only ever look there when something goes wrong, and silly games or attempts at "engagement" are just irritants in that circumstance.

The premise holds across all fields trains compete with bus , planes , ferries and on some routes other train companies, That interaction online might be the first interaction a customer has with a company , and if forms the base line of the reletionship going forward

 

[BeccaOnATrain]

I found LNER and Scotrail responsive, friendly and helpful on Twitter recently.

Though I did see one of the outgoing LNER social media team members got called out for being a bit too sassy/abrupt with customers on his last day doing that role!

Northern.. so so.

Transpennine Express weren't too helpful/appreciative of some issues I had a while back.

 

[fgwrich]

I found LNER and Scotrail responsive, friendly and helpful on Twitter recently.

I have to agree, both TOCs twitters are up there in my books. Helpful and informative, and respond fairly quickly when I've asked them a query (I wasn't expecting such a quick response!). GWRs has also been fairly helpful, particularly when I had to forward them details of some disgusting vandalism on my train a few months back.

SWR on the other hand... But they seem to be almost perpetually useless at nearly everything.

 

[fkofilee]

Quiet a claim to make.
Can you provide substantial evidence of this ?
or it just an accusation because they don’t give you a reply you agree with ?

I have no connection with GTR but am interested in how you come to this conclusion

I can verify this users claim.