Letters
Customer disservice I refer to John Cherry’s letter (October 2011 issue), concerning customer services. I, too, worked in customer services more than a decade ago, so what I am about to write may now be out of date but is illustrative of some of the points made by Mr Cherry. Customer letters were sub- contracted out by the Toc and the sub-contractor was paid by the Toc per letter answered. With such a financial
incentive, the measurement of output was recorded daily and competitiveness developed among my colleagues. Some vied for the highest
number of letters to be despatched in a day, which was achieved by drawing from a library of standard paragraphs for a whole range of occurrences. Inevitably, volume won over quality and those customers who received unsatisfactory replies, many of which were not tailored to the complainants’ points, often wrote again, adding the quality of the reply as an additional complaint. It mattered not because it
was a further letter to be dealt with and more revenue. Some more dogged complainants received unsatisfactory replies more than twice but it kept the coffers topped-up. My role was to ‘ghost’
write replies for the managing director of the Toc to sign personally. As such, each letter had to be individually crafted and the points made had to be researched so that a reasoned, explanatory reply worthy of the MD’s signature was prepared. Sometimes these replies ran to two, three or, on rare occasions, four pages to deal with the matters raised. Whilst it was understood that I got the ‘difficult’ ones to answer, there was still an unspoken
Not in my back garden
I have just read your interesting article on ‘Heathwick’ (November 2011 issue). Last year I attended a Kent County Council vision for the future, whereby they suggested linking Manston, which has loads of air capacity, with HS1 – a relatively cheap option. Beyond that, high speed links to Stansted and a high speed rail M25 equivalent would bring in Luton, Heathrow and Gatwick. Putting aside its enormous costs it was, I felt, an excellent vision for the future. If Manston was developed, rather than the more contentious ‘Boris Island’, it would contribute to the much needed transformation of the economy of east Kent.
As a relatively quick fix, Manston could provide immediate additional slots, as long as its link with the capital is quick and not
under-current that my four or five letters per day compared very unfavourably with the 70 or 80 being sent out with standard replies. Where money is the incentive, then volume will always take precedence over quality. Two years ago, I had some
excessively expensive to users. It already has a good runway, and most of its approach/ departure route is over water. Properly integrated, the opportunity to replace internal road traffic movements, and then internal flights, through high speed links to Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh would have a huge impact on our infrastructure. An HS25, could release airport and air traffic
slots, and reduce many of the coach and car journeys between the London Airports. The downside was that, on the map I saw, the Ashford to Gatwick link seemed to go through my back garden rather than parallel to the exiting Ashford-Tonbridge corridor!
Graham Baldwin Kent & East Sussex Railway Co
unsatisfactory ‘bog standard’ correspondence with Scotrail following the failure to hold a last train in an engineering works context. They never really answered my points but merely seemed programmed to reply on auto-pilot with platitudes, reasons that did not fit the
circumstances and an offer of compensation.
My experience with other well known non-railway companies matches our railway examples. Little trouble is taken to read the content.
Graham Davis Gillingham, Kent
DECEMBER 2011 PAGE 13
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