Virgin East Coast Twitter

[Qwerty133]

I quite like the poll that they're doing at the moment: https://twitter.com/Virgin_TrainsEC/status/926530344526008321

It makes people have a discussion about the on-board catering which makes a change, it's a way of interacting with people outside of relying on the passenger to tweet about something. Better than the usual memes not related to anything significant.

I rarely say it, but well done ^KM

On the topic of polls, look at the one I ran recently: https://twitter.com/SaveECRewards/status/925020757675184128

Shame that the first reply would basically be sexual harassment if it was about female rather than male staff members....

 

[AlterEgo]

Shame that the first reply would basically be sexual harassment if it was about female rather than male staff members....

I don’t think it’s the first exchange between them.

 

[Frontera2]

Hooo boy, this makes for interesting reading

I am currently a temp Social Media Advisor for Northern. I've been doing it on and off for the last year or so to help out, and full time since the start of October. Some of you may have interacted with me already. Apologies if I've ever let you down

I feel like I should give an insight into what the job is like. At Northern we have a team of four (currently five as one person is training) - this compared to nine for CrossCountry/GCR (who also do control roles as part of their position), but only two for ATW. I think VTEC have about four of five as well. We work in York ROC, as do VTEC's team. We have two standard shifts in the day - 06:00-14:45 and 13:15-22:00. It's seven days on, two off, seven on, two off, seven on, five off, so we work every day of the week

The desk was set up about five years ago when Twitter was in its infancy. We currently use a website called Conversocial which allows us to see, categorise and respond to messages incoming from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+ (although we rarely get any messages from the latter two). With Twitter, this includes active searches set up for stuff like "#NorthernRail" where they haven't directly @'d us in. The number of messages we get in varies a lot but at this time of year, with leaf-fall, short-forms, storms etc, we generally get 800-1200 messages a weekday. We hit 1400 on Monday, including 300 in one hour in the morning while the Doncaster-Sheffield line was down and Leeds was chaos because of a broken down VTEC train. Nearly all of them were complaints

As a few people here have alluded to, the complaints we get in can be incredibly vitriolic and arrogant. You have people who we can see portray themselves on Twitter as very sweet, nice people who are sending us full-blown tirades saying we're the worst train operator in the world, we run a third world service, we should all be fired and that we don't care. It actually makes me worry about what sort of society we have become that people who project themselves in that way could actually be suppressing that sort of anger and then unleashing it on social media. And I don't buy that they don't know there's someone on the other end reading it - I don't think it's malicious but it's not out of ignorance either. Maybe there's just a certain type of person who does that - it's hard to know how representative it is. It's definitely made me change the way I post on social media

As much as anything, a lot of the complaints do show up how little people understand how the railway works. But the frustrating aspect of that is even if you try and explain to them that, to give a topical example, there are no more carriages we can send out because we have a few in the depot for maintenance, they absolutely refuse to accept that as a valid reason and think we're fobbing them off, even though it's entirely true. They can't understand that it's going to take another year for us to develop our new trains, because as far as they're concerned it's been 18 months since the start of the franchise so why aren't they ready to go? We must be making it all up. Our customers don't trust us at all, and that seems to be entirely indicative of the industry as a whole and how people interact with nearly all TOC social media accounts

But there are other aspects to our job. We have to do a lot of fault-reporting, be it trains or stations. We have to chase up Delay Repay claims and complaints that the Customer Experience Centre haven't dealt with. We submit complaints that customers send us. We pass on positive feedback to colleagues (mostly conductors). We deal with unit number requests and our "regular tweeters", ranging from a few people who like a natter with us to autistic people who really like trains and think of us as friends - this has been one of the most surprising aspects to the job for me as I'd have had no idea this was such a big thing, but it's a nice distraction most of the time. And these days we have a brief to produce "creative content" every week - those of you who follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook will know we've been putting out a lot more casual posts around things like #GuessTheStation or station tours, which is there to encourage positive engagement, something the company is quite keen on (as all comms output has metrics attached to rate it)

This is of course on top of the main role we have, which is to respond to virtually every message we get in - it's not always possible, and we've had to ignore a lot more messages of late because the sheer number coming in is not something we can physically deal with. The first week I was in on full shift was the week where we were short-forming everything on the MCO-Hunts Cross line and it was an absolute nightmare - we were routinely getting 100-200 messages of abuse from the residents of Urmston and Irlam every peak, the same people every time. The two storms were pretty bad as well - train companies are now apparently supposed to prevent hurricanes, according to our customers, so it was all our fault that the Calder Valley got flooded. But I feel a lot more settled in the role now and this week has been a lot quieter

What I would say is that I'm quite rare in that I'm a rail enthusiast who wanted to get into the industry specifically. My colleagues on the team aren't rail specialists, although two have family members who are in the industry. The team members are there on social media expertise. It has its pros and cons. Perhaps someone with less enthusiasm for the industry and the company wouldn't take some of the criticism to heart as much as I do!

As much as anything, you don't need to be an expert in railways to do a TOC social media job - you just need to be given the right information, and intelligent people can work with that, regardless of whether or not they know the difference between a 150 and 156. The problem comes when the right people don't pass that information on, and we end up looking less informed than the customers who are messaging us. Often if a tricky question comes in that I don't have the information for, I'll just Google the answer myself. 9 times out of 10, that's enough to give the right answer

But there are exceptions. I was asked about opening hours at Buckshaw Parkway today - the closing time is down on the NRE website as 17:45, but it's actually 00:10 (I have that information because I put it together and sent it to NRE in September, and they still haven't updated it!). But I wouldn't have known that if I didn't have the spreadsheet I put together with that on - that information is not available internally or externally. You'll be surprised at how little information we are actually given to work with - a lot of the stuff we need to do our jobs just isn't available to us on demand, and we don't have the time to chase it up with colleagues, because we're expected to respond very quickly - people have been complaining a lot lately that we haven't been responding within about 10 minutes, because we're dealing with backlogs of 300-400 messages going back several hours

It's been a learning experience - I'll say that much. The industry doesn't communicate well internally, and it's us on the front line who have to face the abuse of customers when things go wrong and we don't have the answers to give to them. It's very hard not to care, because you have a lot of different stories coming in every day, some of them very emotionally charged, and it's hard not to sympathise - at the same time, it's very hard not to care for the company when customers are making totally ill-founded criticisms of us and then using that to go to the press or politicians, which they then use to justify their own positions. That's why I don't agree that those of us just sit there and don't give a toss or have to give a toss - it's impossible not to

And for all the fact that it's "only" communicating from behind a computer screen, people's behaviour is a lot more extreme when they don't have to face an individual. Since I started on this job, I go to sleep and dream of responding to angry customers. I appreciate I'm not a nurse, or a fireman, or a policeman, or even doing some of the less pleasant work on the railways - it's not traumatising. But it's not like we're sat there chatting with mates either - it's very serious, professional customer service work, for 9 hours a day, 7 days in a row

A fascinating read and thanks for sharing. You're right about the complaints etc and that's one of the reasons why, in the TOC I'm employed by, I set it up so that the team are multi functional and rotate between traditional info provision and Social Media, to avoid burn-out. Working 5 consecutive shifts receive torrents of abuse wouldn't be nice for anyone.

We use Hootsuite and it works very well for us.

 

[FQTV]

I quite like the poll that they're doing at the moment: https://twitter.com/Virgin_TrainsEC/status/926530344526008321

It makes people have a discussion about the on-board catering which makes a change, it's a way of interacting with people outside of relying on the passenger to tweet about something. Better than the usual memes not related to anything significant.

I rarely say it, but well done ^KM

On the topic of polls, look at the one I ran recently: https://twitter.com/SaveECRewards/status/925020757675184128

Yes I'll give them that! That's quite a good one.

I'm not sure that I want to be so charitable!

The survey question is actually relevant to one of my irritations with their onboard service, but not in a productive way.

It seems to infer that, once again, they're trying to hit a panel pin with a sledgehammer to simplify their own lives.

If I board a breakfast service, I'd rather like a coffee and a fruit juice together, straight away. If I board at 11am or 2pm, I'd like a choice of tea or coffee. If I board for lunch or for dinner, I may prefer a cold drink to start off with.

I don't want to be offered a G&T half an hour before a coffee at 11am, nor do I want coffee before my dinner.

Can you imagine if a waiter at even a TGI Friday's sat a guest at a table for dinner and said 'tea or coffee' as their opening gambit?

Or if a waiter at a Little Chef welcomed you for breakfast and said 'it's just fruit juice now. You'll have to wait if you want a hot drink.'

 

[SaveECRewards]

Shame that the first reply would basically be sexual harassment if it was about female rather than male staff members....

I'm not seeing the replies in the same order (I hate that social networks seemingly put replies in a random order these days) but if it's the one I think you're talking about then @AlterEgo is right, they have interacted on Twitter before, they might even know each other.

I'm not sure that I want to be so charitable!

The survey question is actually relevant to one of my irritations with their onboard service, but not in a productive way.

It seems to infer that, once again, they're trying to hit a panel pin with a sledgehammer to simplify their own lives.

If I board a breakfast service, I'd rather like a coffee and a fruit juice together, straight away. If I board at 11am or 2pm, I'd like a choice of tea or coffee. If I board for lunch or for dinner, I may prefer a cold drink to start off with.

I don't want to be offered a G&T half an hour before a coffee at 11am, nor do I want coffee before my dinner.

Can you imagine if a waiter at even a TGI Friday's sat a guest at a table for dinner and said 'tea or coffee' as their opening gambit?

Or if a waiter at a Little Chef welcomed you for breakfast and said 'it's just fruit juice now. You'll have to wait if you want a hot drink.'

I know the context of why this poll was created. One of the passengers was saying now it's getting cold outside wouldn't it be nice if we got a hot drink first. He suggested running a poll on it and ^KM obliged.

Back in late 2015 the service style changed breakfast was still basically the same with plenty of hot drinks runs as well as cold non-alcoholic drinks. But later services the cups were removed from the tables (I was told at the time it was so people who didn't want a hot drink wouldn't have a cup in the way if using a laptop) and on an evening meal train the service would run in the order - cold drinks, main, dessert, hot drinks. For me, I liked this style of service. On the evening meal train with the chef and the better desserts, it's the closest you'll get to the old restaurant style service.

I think this style of service isn't as good for people going short distances or people who don't want to eat as on a northbound train this often means the first hot drinks run will appear around the 70 minute mark (so no hot drinks KGX-PBO). Trains serving 'rest of day' menu will usually get their hot drinks quicker as there's no proper dessert service (just a muffin off the trolley).

 

[FQTV]

I'm not seeing the replies in the same order (I hate that social networks seemingly put replies in a random order these days) but if it's the one I think you're talking about then @AlterEgo is right, they have interacted on Twitter before, they might even know each other.



I know the context of why this poll was created. One of the passengers was saying now it's getting cold outside wouldn't it be nice if we got a hot drink first. He suggested running a poll on it and ^KM obliged.

Back in late 2015 the service style changed breakfast was still basically the same with plenty of hot drinks runs as well as cold non-alcoholic drinks. But later services the cups were removed from the tables (I was told at the time it was so people who didn't want a hot drink wouldn't have a cup in the way if using a laptop) and on an evening meal train the service would run in the order - cold drinks, main, dessert, hot drinks. For me, I liked this style of service. On the evening meal train with the chef and the better desserts, it's the closest you'll get to the old restaurant style service.

I think this style of service isn't as good for people going short distances or people who don't want to eat as on a northbound train this often means the first hot drinks run will appear around the 70 minute mark (so no hot drinks KGX-PBO). Trains serving 'rest of day' menu will usually get their hot drinks quicker as there's no proper dessert service (just a muffin off the trolley).

That's helpful background; thank you. My concern would still be that the poll could produce 'customer feedback' that the company uses to serve its own ends and to 'streamline' service even more. It was after the 2015 changes that I started to ditch First Class and indeed move to Grand Central with a connection on occasion, as the Northbound service ex King's Cross, particularly late morning, was completely inappropriate and, personally-speaking, a bit of a nuisance.

 

[SaveECRewards]

That's helpful background; thank you. My concern would still be that the poll could produce 'customer feedback' that the company uses to serve its own ends and to 'streamline' service even more. It was after the 2015 changes that I started to ditch First Class and indeed move to Grand Central with a connection on occasion, as the Northbound service ex King's Cross, particularly late morning, was completely inappropriate and, personally-speaking, a bit of a nuisance.

I certainly have my doubts about a lot of things. e.g. VTEC had a survey about on-board service on the Azuma trains and reading between the lines suggested the evening meal would no longer be chef produced, but it would still have a better dessert than the rest of day offering. They were making a big deal in the survey about offering a bread roll with your meal (which reminded me that BA in Club Europe give you a bread roll with your meal on even the shortest of flights). Other questions were worded in a way that you might be saying you don't want hot food to be available all day, just at mealtimes.

As this poll was created from a customer request I don't see any sinister motive, of course they can use the information however they like, for good or bad.

VTEC have taken a hammering lately, they could do with some 'cheap wins' (things that improve customer perception but cost very little) to improve the perception of their on-board service.

 

[Chrism20]

I certainly have my doubts about a lot of things. e.g. VTEC had a survey about on-board service on the Azuma trains and reading between the lines suggested the evening meal would no longer be chef produced, but it would still have a better dessert than the rest of day offering. They were making a big deal in the survey about offering a bread roll with your meal (which reminded me that BA in Club Europe give you a bread roll with your meal on even the shortest of flights). Other questions were worded in a way that you might be saying you don't want hot food to be available all day, just at mealtimes.

With something like twenty odd five car Azumas on the way there is undoubtedly going to be some doubled up (or even single ones) leaving the cross at peak times. These will bring reduced numbers of first class seating and I don’t think the numbers will justify a chef on these services and if they are doubled you are looking at two chefs so something has to give.

I can see it ending up like the West Coast first class food options where the menu is split pendolino and voyager although the five car Azumas will apparently have a full kitchen unlike the voyagers but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a chef in it. It could be the case that it’s airline style meals that are plated and served by the crew.

 

[Gemz91]

Shame that the first reply would basically be sexual harassment if it was about female rather than male staff members....

All comes across quite amateurish in my opinion. It seems like the Virgin Twitter person, and the other person know each other, and are having a bit of a giggle together. Doesn't come across very professional.

Just had a quick look at the Twitter page, to me it seems its a bit like a 14 year old is running his school chess club Twitter feed, who has just discovered those awful memes and is posting them willy nilly whilst having a laugh with his mates. Doesn't come across as a million pound mainline railway Twitter account to me.

That said, I'm not on Twitter, so maybe this is the norm for companies on Twitter for all I know. Obviously the Virgin Twitter team are doing something right in the eyes of the company otherwise they'd all be out of a job. Just not my cup of tea.

 

[SaveECRewards]

With something like twenty odd five car Azumas on the way there is undoubtedly going to be some doubled up (or even single ones) leaving the cross at peak times. These will bring reduced numbers of first class seating and I don’t think the numbers will justify a chef on these services and if they are doubled you are looking at two chefs so something has to give.

I can see it ending up like the West Coast first class food options where the menu is split pendolino and voyager although the five car Azumas will apparently have a full kitchen unlike the voyagers but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be a chef in it. It could be the case that it’s airline style meals that are plated and served by the crew.

Using current menu terminology they could just label all 5 car formed trains as 'rest of day' menu while keeping the 9 car ones in the evening peak as evening meal. As we're drifting off topic we can continue in an appropriate thread if further Azuma discussion is needed.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Ooh I've been blocked by VTEC!

 

[Chrism20]

Ooh I've been blocked by VTEC!

Any idea why?

Here’s hoping they activate the enquiry by fax service soon.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Any idea why?

Here’s hoping they activate the enquiry by fax service soon.

I won't know the exact reason, so can only guess by the timings.

It happened after someone tweeted VTEC asking how much subsidy they get. I replied something along the lines of: none, but they've overbid and gone to the government with a begging bowl.

 

[Chrism20]

I won't know the exact reason, so can only guess by the timings.

It happened after someone tweeted VTEC asking how much subsidy they get. I replied something along the lines of: none, but they've overbid and gone to the government with a begging bowl.

Well you certainly haven’t said anything incorrect with that statement.

 

[yorkie]

They block accounts that interact with their other customers if they provide corrections to incorrect information given out by VTEC.

I've seen this before. They do not like being corrected. Why don't they just admit they're wrong? it's crazy.

Some other TOCs are the same.

It makes no effect; simply click "open in private window" (or whatever; depends on your browser) to see what they are saying.

And to see incoming tweets, simply search for to:virgin_trainsec

They aim to stop you and others providing useful corrections when Virgin are caught giving out incorrect, incomplete or misleading info, but they can't actually stop that!

 

[SaveECRewards]

In another weird turn of events I appear to be unblocked

 

[takno]

In another weird turn of events I appear to be unblocked

Maybe you were blocked by a member of support staff on their last day. If it's good enough for the president of the USA..

 

[SaveECRewards]

Maybe you were blocked by a member of support staff on their last day. If it's good enough for the president of the USA..

If only

I will be fair and say on balance I thought they did a decent job tonight considering the pressure they were under. So many things went wrong today (many they had no control over), I think there's a lot of lessons for VTEC to learn out of this but the Twitter team (of two ^SH was brought in to help ^KM) did the best they could under the barrage of tweets.

 

[yorkie]

Why have they not answered this?
https://twitter.com/Kofi_eye/status/926521190193205249

Provided it's not a split ticket, then yes, this rule should apply. ^KM

Oh, do passengers who use more than one ticket for their journey have fewer rights than passengers who only buy one ticket?

I know relevant people at VTEC are reading this; can someone please ensure that passengers are never informed that they have their rights reduced by using a combination of fares?

Our right to use a combination of fares is enshrined in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage (Condition 14).

They do say some concerning things at times.

Yes I am sure they do good things too, but many of us have busy days at work where we help people. But we don't go around mistreating and misadvising customers and would not get away with it in our jobs.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I will be fair and say on balance I thought they did a decent job tonight considering the pressure they were under.

I'd agree the Twitter team did a really good job yesterday. Pretty much the only people at VTEC who could go to bed last night without feeling ashamed of their performance.

 

[rg177]

Why have they not answered this?
https://twitter.com/Kofi_eye/status/926521190193205249



I know relevant people at VTEC are reading this; can someone please ensure that passengers are never informed that they have their rights reduced by using a combination of fares?

Our right to use a combination of fares is enshrined in the National Rail Conditions of Carriage (Condition 14).

They do say some concerning things at times.

Yes I am sure they do good things too, but many of us have busy days at work where we help people. But we don't go around mistreating and misadvising customers and would not get away with it in our jobs.

Their customer services seem to insist that rights are reduced with split tickets, following my delay in August with split tickets from Exeter to Newcastle and a delay on a VTEC service, they happily handed over £14 rather than £41 and told me that it's policy never to compensate on split tickets where more than one service is involved.

When I complained, they then proceeded to reopen the case, send my claim to GWR (bizarrely) and gave me naff all instead of the original 14!

 

[SaveECRewards]

Their customer services seem to insist that rights are reduced with split tickets, following my delay in August with split tickets from Exeter to Newcastle and a delay on a VTEC service, they happily handed over £14 rather than £41 and told me that it's policy never to compensate on split tickets where more than one service is involved.

When I complained, they then proceeded to reopen the case, send my claim to GWR (bizarrely) and gave me naff all instead of the original 14!

Did you try Transport Focus?

Or indeed keep pushing for escalation within VTEC.

 

[rg177]

Did you try Transport Focus?

Or indeed keep pushing for escalation within VTEC.

Pushed three times with VTEC but calling their customer 'solutions' centre just results in some bored sounding person answering, reeling off the same stuff and nothing progressing.

Tempted to go to Transport Focus now.

 

[yorkie]

Their customer services seem to insist that rights are reduced with split tickets, following my delay in August with split tickets from Exeter to Newcastle and a delay on a VTEC service, they happily handed over £14 rather than £41 and told me that it's policy never to compensate on split tickets where more than one service is involved.

Please refer the matter to Transport Focus.

When I complained, they then proceeded to reopen the case, send my claim to GWR (bizarrely) and gave me naff all instead of the original 14!

This is wrong; the entire journey needs to be compensated by the train company who caused the delay.

GWR's charter makes it clear:

"If you have a combination of tickets for your journey, we’ll compensate you for your whole journey in line with the compensation arrangements above.

If some of your tickets are for trips with other train companies, we’ll compensate you if we caused the delay...."

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

You're fretting a lot over individual posts here. Yes, it's important to get accurate information out, of course. But I sent out over 300 responses to customers this morning alone - responding to about half of the messages we had in, mostly within 60 seconds. It's inevitable that mistakes are made. We're also given different instructions from different people and places, occasionally conflicting. It's a lot to take in. If I make only one mistake per shift, that's probably a very good shift

As an advisor, I'm expected (by a customer) to have detailed knowledge of every aspect of the railways, as well as knowing how to be a social media advisor more generally - and even when I give out accurate information, that often still isn't enough to satisfy the customer, as they often refuse to accept it as true. But the fact is it's not realistic to know everything to that level of detail. Nor is it realistic to respond to every single message we get in - we simply don't have the time

You have to remember we're in the unique position where we're facing the public in our jobs but that virtually all our output is available for the whole world to see (and criticise), and it's there permanently as a record of that. Those of who you have ever done a front line customer service job will know what it's like to deal with the public and know it's impossible to work without making mistakes. Perhaps it's worth bearing that in mind when pouring over the hundreds of messages we send out every day

 

[yorkie]

You're fretting a lot over individual posts here...

If I was to deny someone rights I don't think I would be able to use that as an excuse.

Yes, it's important to get accurate information out, of course. But I sent out over 300 responses to customers this morning alone - responding to about half of the messages we had in, mostly within 60 seconds. It's inevitable that mistakes are made.

It is not a mistake; they're all at it, on a regular basis. The correct information is there for them to see, yet they refuse to look when challenged. They then block people who challenge them (no abusive language used to challenge them).

We're also given different instructions from different people and places, occasionally conflicting. It's a lot to take in. If I make only one mistake per shift, that's probably a very good shift

Many of us do challenging jobs. Yes mistakes happen, but denying people their rights and then refusing to back down when challenged is not acceptable.

As an advisor, I'm expected (by a customer) to have detailed knowledge of every aspect of the railways, as well as knowing how to be a social media advisor more generally - and even when I give out accurate information, that often still isn't enough to satisfy the customer, as they often refuse to accept it as true. But the fact is it's not realistic to know everything to that level of detail. Nor is it realistic to respond to every single message we get in - we simply don't have the time

Sorry but none of this is an excuse for repeatedly refusing to be corrected when wrong. It's not just the twitter people, but their customer/web support (whatever it is), they were absolutely appalling on a recent incident where they shouted over a customer who was clearly in the right.

It's a cultural problem within the organisation.

You have to remember we're in the unique position where we're facing the public in our jobs but that virtually all our output is available for the whole world to see (and criticise), and it's there permanently as a record of that. Those of who you have ever done a front line customer service job will know what it's like to deal with the public and know it's impossible to work without making mistakes. Perhaps it's worth bearing that in mind when pouring over the hundreds of messages we send out every day

This is not about criticising for a simple mistake. If, when corrected, they apologised, and accepted the correction, I would not be so unhappy.

The company has massive failings and I am aware of several forum members who are absolutely sick of the way they are treated. They are absolutely not listening to customers at all; their aim seems to be to fob people off and to repeatedly 'correct' people who give out the correct information when they got it wrong.

This is not about someone making a simple mistake and apologising for it. We all do that! This is very different.

 

[SaveECRewards]

Here we go again... ^JC claiming print at home tickets are transferable even though the website mentions you need to have ID matching the name on the ticket.

He's unwilling to correct his information and understandably the customer is more likely to believe the official account to some random person.

Here's the thread: https://twitter.com/Virgin_TrainsEC/status/927889897184260096

1. Virgin Trains EC‏Verified account @Virgin_TrainsEC 35m
   That will be fine Linda, as the tickets are transferable. You won't need to amend these. ^JC
   
   
2. Linda Hughes‏ @LindaGHug 33m
   Really? But the website says need to show ID to validate in the name of traveller?
   
   
3. Virgin Trains EC‏Verified account @Virgin_TrainsEC 27m
   It's fine to transfer the ticket to another person, as it can only be used the once. ^JC
   
   
4. Save EC Rewards‏ @SaveECRewards 23m
   You might think that's true, but please double check the rules for print at home, I think you're wrong on this
   
   
5. Save EC Rewards‏ @SaveECRewards 21m
   The orange tickets you get from the station/post ARE transferable, print at home tickets ARE NOT!

I've pointed this out to David Horne and Nick Wood (social media manager) it's getting beyond a joke now. It's certainly a lottery these days who you get as to the quality of advice.

 

[yorkie]

If their policy has changed and the Print @ Home tickets can be used by a person other than that named on the ticket, so they are consistent with Chiltern Railways, their website should be updated to reflect this.

Could you point them in the direction of NRCoT 14, the Advance Fare FAQ (which I believe was originally drafted by a pricing manager at what was then East Coast) and the clarification in GWR's charter? It would be great if the social media team would accept that passengers may use a combination of fares for one journey, with no loss of rights.

 

[SaveECRewards]

If their policy has changed and the Print @ Home tickets can be used by a person other than that named on the ticket, so they are consistent with Chiltern Railways, their website should be updated to reflect this.

Could you point them in the direction of NRCoT 14, the Advance Fare FAQ (which I believe was originally drafted by a pricing manager at what was then East Coast) and the clarification in GWR's charter? It would be great if the social media team would accept that passengers may use a combination of fares for one journey, with no loss of rights.

According to one of the guards it's still a requirement for the name to match who's travelling and to present ID, however it's rarely enforced (more people with print at home tickets doesn't make checking feasible) but when you're advising a customer you shouldn't put them in a potentially expensive situation.

Yesterday ^KM correctly said that the name needed to match the ticket, so it's a case of luck whether you get someone who knows the right answer.

I can't point them in the direction of anything these days, only one of the people there pays attention and he's leaving soon for something better (not sure what). Even simple things like the layout of their own trains (there's a few who keep saying J is a standard unreserved carriage on an HST when it's the first class quiet coach) seems hard to get the message through.

 

[SaveECRewards]

A rather cheeky reply by ^KM, as usual the 'coming soon' (over a year away) Azuma is the cure for all issues.

Virgin Trains EC‏ Verified account @Virgin_TrainsEC 8h
We're currently investing a lot of money in our new #VirginAzuma sets, which hopefully will have these for you Debbie. ^KM
Jonny Kyle‏ @jonnyjkyle
Replying to @Virgin_TrainsEC @debbielawsonart @VirginTrains
You didn't invest in them, they were already ordered by ORR before VTEC took the franchise from EC!

Virgin Trains EC‏ Verified account @Virgin_TrainsEC 4h
Replying to @jonnyjkyle @debbielawsonart @VirginTrains
Apologies Jonny, I didn't realise you worked in our Finance team. ^KM

Jonny Kyle‏ @jonnyjkyle 4h
Don't be so patronising. I don't need to, considering it's a government initiative & all the information can be retrieved via a simple FOI request. Since I'm not that sad, these screenshots should suffice. Try to "Virgin" yourself out of this one.