Staff accused via Twitter

[YorkshireBear]

And how do you determine between the two?!



Ok, understood (I don't use it myself!). But presumably the TOC is likely to have 'followers' or whatever who would see posts relating to them? They are ultimately public, rather then private?

If you follow someone you only see tweets by them not tweets to them.
You have to specifically search to see all tweets to a person ( or company ) i regularly do it for northern and tear some people to pieces. (i get bored its fun to do)

 

[BestWestern]

If you follow someone you only see tweets by them not tweets to them.
You have to specifically search to see all tweets to a person ( or company ) i regularly do it for northern and tear some people to pieces. (i get bored its fun to do)

So it is reasonable to assume that interested passengers are likely to regularly so such a search in order to see what their fellow travellers are saying presumably. It's not like nobody else will ever see your 'tweet'?!

 

[transmanche]

Ok, understood (I don't use it myself!). But presumably the TOC is likely to have 'followers' or whatever who would see posts relating to them? They are ultimately public, rather then private?

No, as I mentioned in post #37, if you 'follow' someone you'll only see the tweets they send. And in fact most people* will only see the tweets they send to a general audience. It's only if you look at their 'timeline' on the Twitter website that you'll see their replies to any tweets sent to them. And to see the original tweets to the organisation, you have to go out of your way to search for them.

* Most people use desktop apps like TweetDeck or mobile apps on their phone
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

So it is reasonable to assume that interested passengers are likely to regularly so such a search in order to see what their fellow travellers are saying presumably. It's not like nobody else will ever see your 'tweet'?!

I doubt that most people will search regularly.

A lot of people might grumble about a service without 'addressing' their tweet to the organisation concerned; so if you want to search to see what others are saying you might search a more general term (or a hashtag, e.g. #fccfail).

 

[BestWestern]

All sounds like a pain in the a*se to me. Think I'll stick with a latte and a copy of The Times!

 

[AlterEgo]

It simply isn't appropriate to provide people with such an open and unregulated tool to abuse staff under the company's own banner, and the Unions will doubtless push for action in cases of clear abuse.

Twitter is like a huge room filled with millions of people. As a company you can choose either to stay out of the room while people slag you off, or enter the room and deal with the issues sensibly.

If East Coast didn't have their own account, then the complainant would just have put an open tweet to all of their followers saying Person X (named) was drinking on duty. The allegation will still happen - but in this case, as the company has a Twitter account, they've heard about it.

Social Media will be around for many years to come.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

But presumably the TOC is likely to have 'followers' or whatever who would see posts relating to them? They are ultimately public, rather then private?

An individual following an account can't see posts directed at that account unless:

1) They actively search the account's "mentions".

or

2) The post was made to the account by an person they also follow.

A Twitter account isn't like a Facebook page with a Wall for people to scrawl on as they wish.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Not a great follower of twitter but if the TOC replies directly to the tweet you can 'see conversation', can't you?

 

[AlterEgo]

Not a great follower of twitter but if the TOC replies directly to the tweet you can 'see conversation', can't you?

That's correct - if you're so inclined and the user who originally spoke to the TOC isn't a "private" account.

 

[TDK]

I think accusing someone of abusing children and possibly having a drink on duty, which might lead to disciplinary action but isn't illegal (unless it was a driver and they subsequently exceeded a legal limit), is very different.

That is utter rubbish, a railway worker has gone to prison and didn't have a drink, so if he had a drink then possibly his sentance would have been a lot greater! You ar partially correct however it only become illegal on the railway whan an accident/incident occurs when an operative is over the legal limit which is in fact a lot less than the legal limit for driving a car!

 

[D2022]

Take a look at FGWs facebook page, they are taking a hammering about some underage girls boarding a train to find crates of alcohol on the table. I cant link it as my phone doesn't send it to the right page if you open it from a computer.

 

[richw]

Take a look at FGWs facebook page, they are taking a hammering about some underage girls boarding a train to find crates of alcohol on the table. I cant link it as my phone doesn't send it to the right page if you open it from a computer.

So we innocently got on the 5:23 (delayed till 5:33) pm from Truro to Penzance, only to find that when we sat down, the table was covered in Fosters and under the table were 2 boxes of "tinnies". I'm sorry, but some of these "tinnies" of Fosters were full - and we are mere minors under the age of 18. Where are your cleaners? We had to get toilet tissue from the loos to clear up the spillage when one of the cans fell onto our bags. The carriage stunk

The comments that accompany it are hilarious, Was posted Tuesday 20:03 if anyone wants a laugh at the comments.

On a side note if I knew the service was late I'd have got the train to work!

I work a 25 min walk from the station, and there isnt a train between 1722 and 1850 (approx). FGW would increase their commuting traffic through Cornwall with a slight retiming, I work in the largest industrial estate in Truro so many others are 25 mins walk away from station. The other industrial estate in Truro is also approx 25 min walk away from the station in the other direction, so always think its clear that FGW dont want any custom from us who work in the industrial estates in Truro!

 

[Ferret]

Yes, FGW really do have cleaners on every train looking for booze under seats that some ******* left behind. Good grief!

 

[jon0844]

How do you sit down and then notice a table covered in cans of Fosters? Were they invisible from standing in the aisle?

I can't get on Facebook at the moment (DNS issue) so can't enjoy this - as I'm sure I would!

 

[Flamingo]

But I bet they were issued an unreserved apology and a promise that "it would be looked into and the relevant staff spoken to".

I must admit, personally, I dispise and loath the whole facebook/twitter thing, and can"t for the life of me see why any company uses it for anything more than issuing information.

I won't give my opinion of the FGW twitter, as I see the operator of it has recently become a member. All I will say is that he has more patience than me.

 

[richw]

But I bet they were issued an unreserved apology and a promise that "it would be looked into and the relevant staff spoken to".

I must admit, personally, I dispise and loath the whole facebook/twitter thing, and can"t for the life of me see why any company uses it for anything more than issuing information.

I won't give my opinion of the FGW twitter, as I see the operator of it has recently become a member. All I will say is that he has more patience than me.

Ollie has a lot more patience than me as well reading some of the stuff that gets sent, At least you have Serco to deal with most of it now!

 

[BestWestern]

Take a look at FGWs facebook page, they are taking a hammering about some underage girls boarding a train to find crates of alcohol on the table. I cant link it as my phone doesn't send it to the right page if you open it from a computer.

This is exactly why I can't understand the point of it all. Not particularly intelligent people who live their whole unfortunate lives attached to their phone/ipad/tablet/whatever, who feel the need to share their every mundane thought via the internet because they are needy/socially inept/whatever, posting absolute drivel which somebody has to reply to. Who does this benefit, really? How much of what these people post or tweet is actually of enough value to justify the time and money spent having dedicated staff to respond to it? In the above case, what could have happened here in a simpler age is that the people concerned might have made some effort to locate a member of staff who could help them, or maybe even find a bin and put the rubbish in it. Instead, the instinctive reaction is to reach for the mobile and post something on Facebook. It's a PR stunt, nothing more, and it's of deeply questionable merit I would suggest. By all means use it for information output, but to make it interactive is of little real use.

It is essential that there is the opportunity for dissatisfied customers of any business to complain when appropriate. However, there is great value in that complaints system requiring some degree of effort, i.e. via an email/letter/phone call etc, as it dissuades the sort of knee jerk rubbish we see here and largely restricts complaints to those from people who have actually stopped to put some thought into what they have to say.

 

[moley242]

On Rail replacements us Rail replacement bus Controllers/Co-ordinators get accusations as well as sworn at,verbally abused etc.

It seems that the General Public have an axe to grind the minute they don't get a train-even though the block is for safety/improvement works.

My own company supplied a certain member of staff to a certain TOC earlier this year and he was suspected of being under the influence by a passenger-even though he was only loading passengers lugage onto coaches-we were advised not to employ/supply him to the respective TOC in future.

We are employed under a no Alcohol/Drugs policy and the public know that and in some cases they make accusations which are unfounded.

 

[BestWestern]

We are employed under a no Alcohol/Drugs policy and the public know that and in some cases they make accusations which are unfounded.

Indeed they do, and this is one area where the problems come in. If somebody is required to go through a 'proper' complaints channel, the chances are that such malicious complaints will often be considered not worth the hassle, seeing as the moment will have long passed by the time it has been processed. The potential complainant may also have cooled off by the time they get to their computer to send that email, seen sense and decided either that what happened was in fact perfectly reasonable, or at least that embellishing the tale to make a more juicy complaint is not such a good idea. However, the ability to simply whip out a smartphone and start tweeting all sorts of fantastical rubbish the moment somebody gets your back up, leads to all manner of opportunities to cause problems for innocent staff members, and the obligation for the company to offer an immediate reply can result in a less than ideal response.

 

[Flamingo]

As far as I can see, the automatic response is to apologise (however unwarranted it is) and immediately accept the member of staff was wrong / rude / unprofessional with no investigation.

I saw one on the FGW site a few weeks ago where a passenger tweeted that the guard was very jovial despite the train being late, the person in FGW apologising for the guards unprofessional attitude and promising he would be dealt with, and the passenger tweeting back that it was a complement, not a complaint!

 

[ANorthernGuard]

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As far as I can see, the automatic response is to apologise (however unwarranted it is) and immediately accept the member of staff was wrong / rude / unprofessional with no investigation.

I saw one on the FGW site a few weeks ago where a passenger tweeted that the guard was very jovial despite the train being late, the person in FGW apologising for the guards unprofessional attitude and promising he would be dealt with, and the passenger tweeting back that it was a complement, not a complaint!

Many moons ago a Passenger complained quite verociously about myself not doing tickets one weekday morning, he swore I never got out of my cab and just sat on my ar*e. So a CTM phoned me and said they had a complaint and they would check my machine.


I got an apology 10 minutes later


Seems the complainant was at the very front of a peak time 156 with a bike and I had more chance winning the lottery jackpot 5 times on the bounce without buying a ticket then actually getting to him.


some people just like to complain

 

[richw]

Reading some of you railstaff stories about complaints, makes me feel glad that all my conversations with customers are recorded.I'm a telephone based debt collector for a finance company. The number of complaints we get, that we instantly find to be unfounded, just by a manager listening back to the call recording is unbelievable.
Customers are always made aware calls are recorded, and still on some occasions put quite an effort into making a complaint about the staff, yet when listened to, the allegations never happened. The fact calls are recorded in this aspect is excellent to cover us, against the many unfounded allegations, on the flip side if we say something wrong we've pretty much got little defence.

 

[Goatboy]

This is exactly why I can't understand the point of it all. Not particularly intelligent people who live their whole unfortunate lives attached to their phone/ipad/tablet/whatever, who feel the need to share their every mundane thought via the internet because they are needy/socially inept/whatever, posting absolute drivel which somebody has to reply to. Who does this benefit, really? How much of what these people post or tweet is actually of enough value to justify the time and money spent having dedicated staff to respond to it? In the above case, what could have happened here in a simpler age is that the people concerned might have made some effort to locate a member of staff who could help them, or maybe even find a bin and put the rubbish in it. Instead, the instinctive reaction is to reach for the mobile and post something on Facebook. It's a PR stunt, nothing more, and it's of deeply questionable merit I would suggest. By all means use it for information output, but to make it interactive is of little real use.

Absolutely 100% agree. Sums up my feelings nicely.

 

[sheff1]

I saw one on the FGW site a few weeks ago where a passenger tweeted that the guard was very jovial despite the train being late, the person in FGW apologising for the guards unprofessional attitude and promising he would be dealt with, and the passenger tweeting back that it was a complement, not a complaint!

Was the FGW person who tweeted back unprofessionally dealt with ?

 

[Flamingo]

I've no idea, probably not.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

This is exactly why I can't understand the point of it all. Not particularly intelligent people who live their whole unfortunate lives attached to their phone/ipad/tablet/whatever, who feel the need to share their every mundane thought via the internet because they are needy/socially inept/whatever, posting absolute drivel which somebody has to reply to. Who does this benefit, really? How much of what these people post or tweet is actually of enough value to justify the time and money spent having dedicated staff to respond to it? In the above case, what could have happened here in a simpler age is that the people concerned might have made some effort to locate a member of staff who could help them, or maybe even find a bin and put the rubbish in it. Instead, the instinctive reaction is to reach for the mobile and post something on Facebook. It's a PR stunt, nothing more, and it's of deeply questionable merit I would suggest. By all means use it for information output, but to make it interactive is of little real use.

It is essential that there is the opportunity for dissatisfied customers of any business to complain when appropriate. However, there is great value in that complaints system requiring some degree of effort, i.e. via an email/letter/phone call etc, as it dissuades the sort of knee jerk rubbish we see here and largely restricts complaints to those from people who have actually stopped to put some thought into what they have to say.

Great post. I'll probably quote from it when I take my grievance complaint the first time I am ever given a "please explain" from one of these numpties.

 

[richw]

Been thinking about this thread, I think when I was younger I would complain if staff were rude to me, now I wouldn't bother as I am almost certain there will be an under lying background to a staff member being rude. I wouldn't want to be responsible for potentially ruining someones career simply because they were rude, when in all likely hood there's a previous incident they're upset by; perhaps a previous customer has been offensive to them, a relative has died, maybe even I did something inappropriate or many other scenarios upset the staff member for them to be rude.
This is just from things that I have experienced through life that have perhaps made me snap or be rude.

 

[455driver]

Correct course of action taken. It's hard to explain to someone who is not born to travel 1st Class that it takes more than a ticket to fit it. One requires not only the correct dress code but also a casual air of indifference. A natural feeling of subtle superiority does not go amiss either.

If one does not fit the criteria then one should be ejected from 1st Class forthwith ~ regardless of ticket held.

Unfortunately most TOCs these days are behind the diminishing standards in 1st Class with the introduction of 1st Class Advance fares thus severely abstracting from one of the main benefits of 1st in that it used to price out the riff raff.

However, what is even more unfortunate is that I myself rarely measure up to my own high standards so I have had to banish myself from 1st Class sine die.

I worked out what you were doing from the second line, I had a feeling it was a joke from the opening sentence, but then I have got a sense of humour unlike some people!

That is disgusting!

I rest my case!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

All sounds like a pain in the a*se to me. Think I'll stick with a latte and a copy of The Times!

Posh bugger!

To highbrow for me!

 

[D2022]

I worked out what you were doing from the second line, I had a feeling it was a joke from the opening sentence, but then I have got a sense of humour unlike some people!



I rest my case!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Posh bugger!

To highbrow for me!

:roll: I've got a more twisted sense of humour than you clearly, sarcasm.

 

[455driver]

:roll: I've got a more twisted sense of humour than you clearly, sarcasm.

Sarcasm is sarcasm and has nothing to do with a sense of humour, as the saying goes, he who laughs last didnt get the joke!

 

[ex-railwayman]

This is exactly why I can't understand the point of it all. Not particularly intelligent people who live their whole unfortunate lives attached to their phone/ipad/tablet/whatever, who feel the need to share their every mundane thought via the internet because they are needy/socially inept/whatever, posting absolute drivel which somebody has to reply to. Who does this benefit, really? How much of what these people post or tweet is actually of enough value to justify the time and money spent having dedicated staff to respond to it? In the above case, what could have happened here in a simpler age is that the people concerned might have made some effort to locate a member of staff who could help them, or maybe even find a bin and put the rubbish in it. Instead, the instinctive reaction is to reach for the mobile and post something on Facebook. It's a PR stunt, nothing more, and it's of deeply questionable merit I would suggest. By all means use it for information output, but to make it interactive is of little real use.
It is essential that there is the opportunity for dissatisfied customers of any business to complain when appropriate. However, there is great value in that complaints system requiring some degree of effort, i.e. via an email/letter/phone call etc, as it dissuades the sort of knee jerk rubbish we see here and largely restricts complaints to those from people who have actually stopped to put some thought into what they have to say.

Excellent post, it states on Twitter's Wikipedia page that over a 2 week period in 2009 a study found that 40% of tweets were pointless babble, I assume that figure has risen rapidly in the last couple of years.

And the FACT that in the OP the Tweeter is a 15 year old train enthusiast who appears to have done something similar before, as a minor his parents have a legal responsiblity over his actions, something that any TOC should know to investigate any criminal activity has to include them, the BTP cannot interview him without a Parent/Guardian being in attendance, do TOC's do an account search to see who they are dealing with before carrying out any formal company complaint procedure, if I found out that some snotty faced 13 year old oik had tweeted libelous accusations against me, I'd sue his Mum & Dad for millions if it was found to be a schoolboy jape with no foundation, the repurcussions would be immense, this is something that Twitter and TOC's can't have thought long and hard about, obviously.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

 

[transmanche]

And the FACT that in the OP the Tweeter is a 15 year old train enthusiast[...]if I found out that some snotty faced 13 year old oik had tweeted libelous accusations against me, I'd sue his Mum & Dad for millions

Except the FACT that there was nothing libellous in his tweet...

 

[ushawk]

Worth putting in here that ive seen a good few tweets threatening FCC on Twitter because the TL has problems north of Luton because of Police dealing with a bomb scare/armed individual on a train at Bedford station - why get angry and threaten staff about it ? Would they rather it is left so you have a potential bomb and/or a lunatic with a knife possibly attacking people ?