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Twitter good or bad?

Twitter, Good or Bad?

  • Good

    Votes: 51 82.3%
  • Bad

    Votes: 7 11.3%
  • Could be good if TOCs altered format

    Votes: 4 6.5%

  • Total voters
    62
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YorkshireBear

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23 Jul 2010
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8,677
I was looking at the northern rail twitter profile this morning as trains are my local line are suspended. They don't half get some abuse and it must be horrible for the staff day in day out to get abuse and no praise (on the most part). And i am very sure all TOCs are like this. It must be demoralising just to have ilinformed people making ilinformed insults all day every day including a hell of a lot of foul language.

Seems to me most people dont use it for its intended use and just use it to vent anger.

if you choose option 3, give an improvement if you have one in mind.
 
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RailUK Forums

SS4

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Birmingham
Good. You could have the best PR in the world and you'd still get ill-informed rants by ill-informed people
 

Clip

Established Member
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28 Jun 2010
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10,822
The good thing about it is that it does give people a forum to vent their spleen about any issues that happen. Im sure the poor sod sat there reading them doesnt care by now and is only there to take on board and feedback a general public perception of the days issues along with filtering out the abuse and trying to deal with individual issues that are more important.

As long as they are using their own feed to supply relevant updates to keep people informed and not retaliating then thats good.
 

DarloRich

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12 Oct 2010
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Fenny Stratford
a very good tool for companies to broadcast directly to their customer base AND receive feedback on issues affecting/annoying that customer base.

It also allows for real-time updates and enables the customer to get a response to thier questions/complaints.

IMO London Midland offer a really good twitter feed and their operation should be considered by other TOC's
 

ls1911

Member
Joined
14 Feb 2012
Messages
19
Good in the way that people can make tocs aware of situations. Bad in the way of passengers taking pictures of traincrew (without there permission) and uploading them for no reason! Seems to be a favourite thing to do at the min at the company i work for.
 

All Line Rover

Established Member
Joined
17 Feb 2011
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5,221
Twitter is good in that it allows TOC's to have quick, easy, real-time communication with their customers. It's bad in that information can sometimes be misinterpreted by others, and also because of the limited number of characters allowed.

With regard to there being a lot of ill informed posts and foul language on the Northern Rail Twitter account, is this really a surprise? I mean, come on, we are talking about Northerners here... ;)
 

jopsuk

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13 May 2008
Messages
12,771
Greater Anglia have been pretty superb since launch on twitter- NXEA id have a service, but GA have improved upon it massively.
 

SS4

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The only reservation I have is that it shouldn't be used in lieu of offline updates
 

jon0844

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The good thing is that when some people come on and really go off on one, claiming all sorts of things (often grossly exaggerated), it gives the company concerned an opportunity to give quick, accurate and honest explanations.

Sometimes this exposes some people as having made some things up, but it more often just calms people down. Much as the general public can be total arses, some simply don't fully understand how things work and are receptive when they're told.

So, to me, Twitter is a good thing. It's not when a company simply searches for references to itself and then spams a user. That happens quite a lot (mention BT for example and you'll almost certainly get something from them. I recently Tweeted about wishing BT would hurry up and install fibre broadband, to which they came back to me trying to sell BT Infinity (ironic given I was asking for it, and they can't give it to me as they've not installed fibre to the cabinet yet!).
 

DarloRich

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The only reservation I have is that it shouldn't be used in lieu of offline updates

Of course - it should be used to compliment the other forms of communication. However it does allow for massive, quick, dissemination of news/information. Often it will simply be a link to the TOC web page with more details.

I do like the way NR put out pictures of the things that are causing the blockages or delays
 

Aictos

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28 Apr 2009
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10,403
Twitter is very effective when managed properly along with other means of distributing the information.
 

starrymarkb

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4 Aug 2009
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Location
Exeter
Its probably the same as any customer service role, you get a lot of crap and it becomes water off a ducks back...

@DeltaAssist is a good example of customer service twitter done well...
 
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bicbasher

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Joined
14 May 2010
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1,748
Location
London
Twitter has been great for enquiring about problems while on the train or stuck at the station. Southern's social media team who I've had dealings with are excellent on the whole.

It's a shame my other TOC London Overground don't offer it yet.
 

Minilad

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26 Feb 2011
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Anywhere B link goes
I have become a real twitter convert. Some of the info on there is fantastic. A real useful tool when out and about. And if you follow the right people can be a good giggle too
 

Cherry_Picker

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18 Apr 2011
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2,796
Location
Birmingham
If you had said to me ten years ago that Gary Neville would be the person who told me that Osama Bin Laden had been shot dead I wouldnt have believed you. But he did, therefore Twitter is great.
 

iphone76

Member
Joined
6 Nov 2010
Messages
916
Location
South Essex
The GA twitter feed is brilliant. The people there are really helpful and patient and do put up with a lot of stick.

The only reason I signed up was the twitter team and other passengers were giving out delay notifications before we hit them. Now the service to and from Southend is pretty reliable again I don't use it as often.
 

VTPreston_Tez

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26 Jan 2012
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Location
Preston
Some of the more southern based ToCs (Southern, GA, LM, and Chiltern) and in the west Virgin have some great banter going on and are very good at getting the problem across through text and pictures. They are very helpful and talkative.
May I just add that First Group Twitters aren't the most social and rarely reply, but they do state their disruptions and are quite nice overall.
 

Broadside

Member
Joined
18 Oct 2011
Messages
10
Location
Colchester
I echo what iphone76 says about GA. Really helpful people and many's the time I've sat on a delayed service having got a reply back about the cause before it seems the poor driver knows trying to get through to the signalman.
They do take a lot of stick and some agressive questioning but always respond with a courteous reply with answers where they can - and I know they've arranged to hold connections for desperate tweeters seeking help.
So yes, a big thumbs up from me.
 

W-on-Sea

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18 Dec 2009
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c2c do a more than first class job.

FGW do an OK job, but (unlike c2c) strictly office-hours only.
 

trentside

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Although I don't really tweet myself, I maintain an account to follow various TOCs as the information provided can be very useful when out and about. Personally, I think London Midland do a very good job, and some others could learn much from them.
 

tbtc

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16 Dec 2008
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Reston City Centre
It can be A Good Thing when done right.

My problem is that the company I work for have blocked all "social media" sites, which means I can't (legitimately!) view Twitter feeds in the office.
 

ushawk

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5 Nov 2010
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Eastbourne
It's a shame my other TOC London Overground don't offer it yet.

They do - @ldnoverground

And its a very useful tool for TOCs to use, providing they use well (unlike SE which just do automated tweets and TPE which only do offers). Top 3 using Twitter for me are London Midland, Virgin and SWT.
 

jon0844

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What about FCC - one of the, if not the, first? Always Tweets from real people, working from very early until very late (10-11pm).
 

Hydro

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5 Mar 2007
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2,204
I have become a real twitter convert. Some of the info on there is fantastic. A real useful tool when out and about. And if you follow the right people can be a good giggle too

Some folk just keep bloody moaning though. *cough*
 

Hydro

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LM and SWT have great feeds, good info and some good banter too. Gives the companies the human touch. NR are actually good too, as mentioned they tend to stick lovely pictures up of problems and update with engineers ETA etc.
 
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