Sunday, October 30, 2005

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I give up.

I don't think I will ever understand customers. Last week I had to assist a very irate customer who had a debit on her Oystercard. As the fault of the debit laid with both the customer for not getting an extension on her Oystercard and still touching in & out with it, and Wimbledon station for not doing so either; I wasn't able to speak to Wimbledon station staff as it is run by national rail.
I was then asked to come to the ticket office as the customer was refusing to leave the window thereby causing a long queue and inconveniencing other customers. I had to keep her waiting about 10 minutes as I was already dealing with another customer.
Rather than asking her to pay back the debit owed and apply for a refund, I instructed the ticket office staff to cancel the last pre-pay which would then bring her pre-pay balance back to zero and then her travelcard would work again. The ticket office could have just done from the beginning and saved everybody the hassle, but her attitude wasn't condusive. Eventually she went off and we even shared a joke about it as she left. This morning I get called to see the DSM.
I was extremely annoyed and angry to get called to the managers office because this person wrote a letter of complaint about me, said I was very unhelpful, rude and I needed retraining.

In my nine years since joining LUL I have never had a complaint, rather I have had numerous letters of thanks from customers. (well a few)

I think next time I'll just give then the generic card with the customer services details on it and leave them to it.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Other metro prices

Japan (7 day travelcard) for the whole country: £140.80
Paris (7 day travelcard) £10.64
Madrid (single ticket) £0.88
Cairo (single ticket) £0.075p
New York (7 day travelcard) £13.70
Mexico City (single ticket) £0.10
Singapore (single ticket maximum price) £0.65
Bangkok (flat rate single) £0.14p
Newcastle (7 day all zones) £16.00

2006 fare increases announced

The new proposed fare increases for next year have been announced by Ken, and to be quite frank I think they are a bloody extorniate rip-off.

Some of the highlights of the announcements:

The Tube Zone 1 Oyster fare down from £1.70 to £1.50 and as the equivalent cash fare will be £3, this will be a saving of £1.50.

A single journey in Zones 2-6 will cost £1 on Oyster if you pay as you go, compared to £3 if you use cash

Outside Zone 1, the cheapest cash single fare will increase to £3 from £1.30 but the comparable Oyster fare will be reduced from £1.10 to £1

The Family Travelcard will be withdrawn but a £1 Off-peak Child Travelcard will be available for up to four under 16s accompanied by adult Travelcard holders.

Its going to be the casual users, families & tourists who are going to be hit the worst by these price increases. They already got rid of the VERY POPULAR weekend travelcard (even now, we still get tourists asking for them), now they are scrapping the family travelcard. Whereas now a single parent & four sprogs can travel in central London at the weekend for £3.10 that option will no longer be available to them. I expect loads of people to complain and take it out on the station staff as usually happens every January.