Don't Just Stand There, Do Something. Advice For Dealing With Delays

Forty minutes late this morning. So glad I got up before 5am to catch a train … turns out a crew member was late into London from Clacton as his train had failed. The ticket inspector on the train appeared not to care and the announcements at Chelmsford station all took place on the wrong platform so I had to sit craning my ear for forty minutes to see if I could find out when I’d finally be heading North East. Still, I’ll still be here next week shovelling £52 golden pound coins into ‘one’s’ grasping little fingers to keep me ticking over until my season ticket comes up for renewal in August whereupon I’ll have to part with over £3000 for the privilege of such personal service for another year. But, in a change of heart I’ve decided that, with every moan about ‘one’ I should propose a solution, thereby giving them my Customer Experience expertise for nothing.

In The Event of A Crew Member Delay ‘one’ should:
1. Have a back-up crew member in position or on call from the starting station to prevent it occurring, failing that, invoke options 2, 3 and 4.
2. Have clear announcements at every station explaining why the delay was caused and what the most effective solution is i.e. wait for the train or catch train x and change at y etc. etc.
3. Distribute Delay Repay leaflets on the affected train at the same time as apologising personally to customers for the delay, without insipid grins.
4. Detail (on the train’s PA system) estimated new arrival times for each stop along the way.

There, I feel better now, much nicer than ranting at them all the time.