Customer Service in a Septic Isle

Part Two

by Michael Patrick O’Leary

A man waiting in a bus queue is anxious about an aggressive, unleashed dog who is continually barking at him and intimidating him. He says to the man next to him in the queue, “Does your dog bite?” “Naah,” says the man. At this point, the dog bites the first man savagely on the calf. “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” “Not my dog, mate.”

The Land of the Shifting Buck

In Part One I described how our silver anniversary excursion was marred by having to stand for the whole of our train journey and then being locked out of our apartment in Bath.

It was only after we had boarded the train at Paddington that we discovered that the train had been reduced from nine coaches to five and that all seat reservations had been canceled. We had to stand in a crowded corridor for the entire journey of two and a half hours with unmasked people breathing in our faces. If we had been told before boarding that the train was being truncated we could have made the informed decision to wait for the next train as we were only committed to the 14.02 because of our seat reservations which were now void. There are normally 52 trains per day travelling from London Paddington to Bath Spa.

Not My Dog, Mate

The “train manager” (in my far-off youth, they were called “conductors”) was apologizing for the inconvenience throughout the entire agonizing journey and advising passengers to seek a refund from GWR (Great Western Railways). I claimed a refund but was not surprised when GWR said compensation was not their responsibility. “We’re unable to process a refund for a ticket that wasn’t bought from GWR. If you bought your tickets via another retailer, you will need to contact them directly. I can see from the tickets you attached, that it was purchased via Trainline, so you would have to submit a refund via the Trainline website for unused tickets by following the link below.”

My situation exemplified the great Ponzi Scheme that is privatization, the fragmentation of public services and the evasion of responsibilities to the public that comes with outsourcing. Trainline (which, I believe started as a Branson company) said: “Sorry, this booking cannot be cancelled or refunded. This could be because of fare type, validity period or expiry.” There seems to be no way of contacting Trainline to get a clarification of this gnomic utterance. It does not seem possible to discuss the specifics of the situation with an individual human being. Entities morph into each other and span the globe in impregnable hidey-holes.

Complete and Utter

After our trip, I started receiving letters from a company called Complete Savings. I ignored them at first because I had never heard of them and thought it must be scam. The letters said that they had tried contacting my email address without success. I had no record of this. I check my junk mail frequently. When I saw that they had taken £15 from my account I decided I needed to contact them. This is the reply I got: “We confirm receipt of your request. We are currently receiving a high volume of queries and it may take us up to seven working days to respond to your email. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and can assure you we are doing our best to get back to you as soon as possible.”

I waited well over seven days without getting a reply, so I wrote again. This was the reply: “Our records show that you or someone with access to your credit/debit card completed an online transaction with Trainline. After your transaction, you were offered the opportunity to join the Complete Savings programme with a £16.87 cash back voucher and a 30 day free trial. Immediately next to the offer, the offer and Billing Details were displayed. By entering your name, postal code, selecting the relevant postal address from the drop down list, inserting your credit or debit card details and then clicking on the ‘yes’ button to accept the offer, you authorised us to charge the monthly membership fee of £15 to the credit card or debit card that was provided after your free trial period ended.”

I did indeed buy tickets from Trainline but have no recollection of agreeing to anything else. I got my £15 back. There is a popular programme on TV called “Rip-Off Britain”

Never Explain, Never Apologise

Common sense suggests that GWR should bear the responsibility. It was GWR, not Trainline, that cut the train from nine coaches to five. Trainline is just an intermediary that brokered the ticket sale. GWR has operational responsibility for physically running the material entities that we know as “trains”. It was GWR that failed to keep us informed of the situation which led to the truncation of the train. This all shows an appalling, but not surprising, contempt for the paying customer.

Rail workers are currently striking to counter the effect of inflation on their wages as they struggle to meet their energy and housing costs. John Major did to the railways of Britain what he did to Edwina Curry. Government ministers have the Galle Face to blame the rail unions for the fragmentation of rail services and maintenance that was solely caused by government policy of privatisation and outsourcing. The GWR “train manager” gave industrial action as the reason for shortening the train. This is what will come to be categorised as a “Liz Truss apology”. The sub-text is that we should be grateful that GWR had gone to so much trouble not to disappoint us by cancelling the train altogether. The railways used to be run for the benefit of the travelling public. They are now run for the profit of share holders. Mick Lynch of the rail union is the one with the rational arguments.

Railway Company Condemns Trafficking

When I applied for a refund, I received a communication from GWR which said at the bottom “My pronouns are she, her and hers.” There is also something about working together to end domestic abuse. GWR is part of an international conglomerate known as FirstGroup plc. In FirstGroup’s mission statement it says: “At FirstGroup we are committed to conducting our relationships to the highest ethical and moral standards and acting with integrity and professionalism in all our activities. This is in line with our corporate values and the expectations of our colleagues, customers and other stakeholders. It includes the prevention of modern slavery and human trafficking in all its forms and extends to all business dealings and transactions in which we are involved, regardless of location or sector.”

I am proud to be politically correct or “woke” if that means sensitivity to others. Widespread use of the term politically correct began as a pejorative term suggesting the Stalinist orthodoxy of left wingers. The red-faced ranting right claimed sole ownership of Common Sense. All else was mere ideology. The term Political Correctness, used by the right, means “excessive deference to particular sensibilities at the expense of other considerations”. The term “politically incorrect” came into use as implicit self-praise by the Gammon class, indicating that the user was not afraid to speak plainly. Some might say they were just rude and insensitive.

I am against sin. Domestic violence is a bad thing and should be prevented or punished. Slavery and human trafficking are to be abhorred. The human trafficking in which a railway company should be interested is that which involves getting me and other paying customers from A to B, or in this particular instance, from London Paddington to Bath Spa, on time, in reasonable comfort and at a fair price. GWR failed to do that for me and their stance on domestic violence, modern slavery and pronouns is of no relevance to my situation.

The Customer Is the Enemy

I used to write monthly columns on customer service for two Sri Lankan business magazines and a Gripe Corner for a Sunday newspaper. A common theme was corporate hogwash, systems designed to deter the complainant and a tendency to blame the customer. “The customer is always right” used to be the motto. These days it is “nobody else has had a problem. It must be something about you.”

A new weapon in their armoury is the smart phone. In the past, organizations as big as Amazon would be quite blasé about refunding large amounts of money, but today one is asked to provide screen shots and photos over complaints relating to footling amounts. We live in a world dominated by apps and it is difficult for appless, hapless people who are not tech-savvy to negotiate it.

Something that I found amusing – I have a warped sense of humour. The group of which my rental company was a member asked me to provide a review of the accommodation. I provided a balanced and fair assessment, listing the many positive aspects of our stay. I felt duty bound to mention the problems we encountered, mainly the fairly big thing of our joining the homeless of Bath because we were locked out of the apartment that we had paid good money for, but some other mundane issues also. My review was posted on the website with the negative aspects omitted.

I wrote to the rail Ombudsman complaining about GWR, but, to date, have not received even an acknowledgement. The UK’s new prime minister is calling for more growth and proposes further deregulation. It was not too much regulation that got the country into its present parlous state. Customers are likely to get even less protection in the future. I wrote to my excellent Labour MP, Steve Reed, and he got me an apology from the Managing Director of GWR and a full refund. I look forward to the day when Steve becomes Minister of Justice. There is a shortage of justice in Britain today.

“Have you got a photo or a screenshot to prove what you allege? Otherwise you must be a liar.” No admittance of fault. Deniability. Circle the wagons. Repel all boarders. How do we blindside the customer?