"Anon" wrote in message
...
I posted the information not so people could complain as much as get
information from the ones who know. Hence asking to be polite and concise.

Coz let's face it, posting an un-munged valid e-mail domain on usenet, with
instructions as to how to enter usernames in the correct format to make sure
the spambots get it right, is a public service announcment of the first
order - and defintely not the work of a complete and utter ****...
--
Cheers, Steve.
If The Good Lord had meant for us to be fiscally prudent, He would not have
given us the platinum credit card...

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:22:07 -0000, "Anon"
wrote:

I posted the information not so people could complain as much as get
information from the ones who know. Hence asking to be polite and concise.
To say you should put everyone to the press department or customer services
is just silly.(They also get things wrong)

I'm sorry but I was simply explaining company policy. If you had any
idea how many E Mails senior people get in a day alongside everything
else they have to deal with you'd appreciate it was a non starter to
make an approach in that way.

Also if you were expecting a detailed reply it would get delegated to
the person who was closest to the detail to provide the answer. I should
know - I've had to do that in respect of queries from government
departments, ministers, the Mayor, students, other transport
organisations and many other people.

Can you imagine if you asked a member of staff which platform to go to and
they said they were under contract not to reveal the information.

And here you use the "ludicrous example" technique to try to make your
point. I cannot believe any member of LUL staff would be so daft as to
adopt that approach.

When it comes to passing information about service disruption onto
customers. I think you will find that frontline staff have as much
difficulty finding out as the travelling public.

I think it is getting marginally better but I would accept it is not
ideal yet.

As for no PA for seven years then maybe you should ask the local staff why
not. Try asking on a day when there is no disruption you may get a better
response.

for the original poster not Anon
which station is the original poster referring to and is their query
related to a particular day or time of day? There *may* be extenuating
circumstances like noise restrictions or something but I do find a seven
year gap very odd indeed.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:22:07 -0000, "Anon"
wrote:

To say you should put everyone to the press department or customer services
is just silly.(They also get things wrong)

That is standard procedure at most large companies, I would have
thought.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:22:07 -0000, "Anon"
wrote:

I posted the information not so people could complain as much as get
information from the ones who know. Hence asking to be polite and
concise. To say you should put everyone to the press department or
customer services is just silly.(They also get things wrong)

I'm sorry but I was simply explaining company policy. If you had any
idea how many E Mails senior people get in a day alongside everything
else they have to deal with you'd appreciate it was a non starter to
make an approach in that way.

Agreed. I was told last year that Ken Livingstone receives around
1500-2000 mails a month.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Richard J." wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:22:07 -0000, "Anon"
wrote:

I posted the information not so people could complain as much as get
information from the ones who know. Hence asking to be polite and
concise. To say you should put everyone to the press department or
customer services is just silly.(They also get things wrong)

I'm sorry but I was simply explaining company policy. If you had any
idea how many E Mails senior people get in a day alongside everything
else they have to deal with you'd appreciate it was a non starter to
make an approach in that way.

Agreed. I was told last year that Ken Livingstone receives around
1500-2000 mails a month.

If that's true, that sounds like an amazingly low figure to me.

West Finchley's PA does work. There are however restrictions in its use as
not to disturb the neighbours.
This does not prevent staff from making announcements at any time but
obviously they should be considerate.

As you are aware the station is regularly unmanned but maybe not to the
extent that you think. It is a one person run station and usually this
person's main job is to sell tickets.

During the morning peak they are obviously busy and unable to make pa's at
the same time. They therefore have to make a decision on who takes priority.
So unless the service is severely disrupted it is unlikely you will get an
announcement.

It should also be said that a member of staff from Finchley Central is meant
to work on the gateline in the morning and could therefore make the
announcements but usually if the service is disrupted that member of staff
would remain at Finchley Central to help out.

You seem to think also that staff have got all the answers. When it comes to
getting information out West Finchley would be last on a long list of
Stations. There is now a good computer system in place which tracks trains
on the Northern Line. It however does not distinguish between High Barnet
trains and those to Mill Hill East. It would though, give a good indication
of the level of service without resorting to phone calls to other stations.

The customer service replies never satisfy complaints or do anything
positive to resolve the issues. This is what I suggest you do. Ask for the
name of the Duty Manager looking after West Finchley station and use my
formula to send him a polite and concise e.mail.
Do not say it has been going on for seven years and do not ask for any
member of staff to be sacked as this would only degrade your argument.
Simply mention dates and times when you consider a PA would have been
useful.

The manager can then investigate this and pin point if it is an individual
staff issue or a cultural change that should be implemented.

I think you may see an improvement within the next few months/years as
London Underground Management are making customer information one of there
top priorities. It may even be above a good train service.


The station is West Finchley, I have asked staff at Finchley Central
since they hardly ever man WF, they claim they do make announcments, I
then suggested that the PA is out of order and needs fixing then - this
was greeted with a shrug. My eventual reply from CS never mentioned
anything about restrictions, if there were restrictions then surely a
poster informing people about this would be useful. Given the talking and
beeping trains, I would be suprised that LUL are not allowed to tell
people the service is totally shagged and the should get the bus every
now and then would make a massive difference on the lives of the people
living nearby.

The reply from CS was just some regurgitated pap about how customer
information is important and was a ongoing training issue. This
contradicts my daily experience I do not see customer information being a
priority at all, having told an SA somewhere that the board still said
there was no Northern Line (I had just asked if it were running), he
reassured me it was but it never occured to him to correct the board
outside the station until I suggested it. I know it is policy to lie to
customers and say "next train in 10 minutes" when they don't actually
know where any trains were (and could not be bothered to call downline
stations to find out had the seen any trains recently) and apparently
this is not a sackable offence. Any organisation that does not sack
representatives that lie does not have customer information as a
priority, those that pass on lies knowing that they are lies are equally
as bad.

Obviously I cannot say there has *never* been announcement there, but
when there are no trains and the displays at not working or showing
nothing then it is these times you would expect something. I often have
to call the information line (020 7222 1234?) to find out whether trains
are running or whether I should make other arrangement, I always tell
them there have been no announcements, they say they should, I ask them
to report this, they say it is not part of their job. Personally if I was
doing their job and covering for someone else who was was not doing
theirs then I would make damn sure I reported it. I do get the impression
that people stick to their narrow role and do not try to improve things
when they notice it; I am sure some staff must have notices the northern
line displays on the Bank branch still saying "Next High Barnet train in
10-15 minutes"; perhaps this is due to a lack of responsiveness from the
people responsible, but surely the only way to reduce complaints is to
act on the first one rather than the last one; my emails to CS could be
halved had the adopted a policy of "customer service" rather can
contempt. If the whole organisation acted on these sooner then complaints
as a whole would drop; surely it does not matter if one or one hundred
complaints are received when something that should happen is not, the
complaint should be acknowledged, a notice put up informing customers of
the problem and that it is being sorted. Even if they put a notice up
saying "sorry no announcments at this station, we just cannot be
bothered, call 020 7222 1234 would be better than the current situation
where LU just given the customers a great big finger.