Ticket bought online not avilable to collect

[jon0844]

Firstly i dont think any rail call centres should be overseas. They do not have the knowledge about the UK rail network, they do not have any power to be flexible or make a judgement that could contradict there terms and finally they dont have the language skills which aggravates a situation. It was clear they was reading a script leading to us going round in a loop with the different operators saying the same thing word for word.

If they have the training and are given authority to do things, they'd be fine.

But of late, I've noticed that you have companies using UK and Indian call centres. The UK ones often have much more power (but NOT necessarily more local knowledge!) and deal with escalated complaints. The Indian ones are the first level ones there to deal with simple enquiries and give 'drop down list' responses.

I've had major issues with Amazon this week, who have THREE times sent me responses (each time I've tried and failed to escalate) where about 75% of the content is word-for-word identical, but as EVERY time misunderstood my question. I'm banging my head against a wall and just cannot get anyone else to deal with the issue.

I last had problems with Three, but eventually got through to a UK call centre that helped, and confirmed the Indian team had no discretion to do anything. Totally pointless letting them deal with billing issues then!

For the record, at Hatfield station staff all think it's 2 hours. The GWR site says 15 minutes now, and in all but one case I've been able to collect in 15 minutes or even sooner (my best was about a minute). Once I couldn't, and it meant having to buy a new ticket as I couldn't wait - and staff couldn't help (and repeated that I needed to wait two hours, so it was my fault). It was a cheap ticket (under two quid) so I wrote it off.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As an aside, why are folk still using TheTrainLine?

I actually feel like taking a spray can to write something on the trainline advertising at King's Cross and St Pancras. Really gets me angry seeing their ads!

I got an email from a PR company that has just taken over the trainline account and they invited me out for a coffee to meet with them and hear about what they're doing tech wise. I've not replied yet, but did wonder whether to ask if I'd have to pay a booking fee to meet them...!

 

[najaB]

As an aside, why are folk still using TheTrainLine?

It provides a service and charges a fee. The fact that others provide the same/similar service without charging a fee doesn't invalidate their business model, nor does it say anything about the people who use it.

TTL ss part of Beardyrail anyway, isn't it?

It hasn't been for several years - since the mid 2000's at least.

 

[Josie]

Well the call centre i spoke to was clearly not in the UK.

How could you tell?

 

[Puffing Devil]

Pretty minor factors to risk £10(*2) for, plus buying online is not more convenient than buying at the machine. And the OP came in for immense criticism for making that judgement, which was completely unjustified.

Nothing wrong with not buying tickets until ready to go, so I don't think this criticism is certainly unwarranted.

That said, if I were to buy tickets last-minute, I would get to the station in good time and buy from the ticket office/machine. Buying online last-minute means little chance sorting it out if there is a problem, but that is just my personal preference. I certainly would not crucify someone for doing so, when the TOCs themselves claim to have them ready in as little as 15 minutes.

N
I was just going to buy a ticket form the station but when i checked the times i saw i could split at cambridge and save £14 so i decided to just book while i was on the website.

The OP bought online to ensure he could get a split - generally easier to collect from a machine than deal with some ticketing staff who have their own view of what they can/cannot issue.

And the OP has a refund - so perhaps time to close the thread?

 

[beeza1]

The OP bought online to ensure he could get a split - generally easier to collect from a machine than deal with some ticketing staff who have their own view of what they can/cannot issue.

I've never had a problem buying split tickets from a ticket office, quite the contrary, I have had some very good "splits" suggested by ticket office staff.

 

[Bletchleyite]

How could you tell?

Satellite lag is the usual way. It makes a conversation *very* difficult.

 

[najaB]

Satellite lag is the usual way. It makes a conversation *very* difficult.

Totally OT, but it would be very odd for voice traffic to India to travel over satellite these days. I don't experience any noticeable lag when talking with colleagues in India.

 

[jon0844]

Totally OT, but it would be very odd for voice traffic to India to travel over satellite these days. I don't experience any noticeable lag when talking with colleagues in India.

The scam calls you get seem to use some very low cost routing, which has lots of delays. I assume that's because they can make the calls for near no cost, which is essential when they're cold calling all day.

Certainly for larger companies, you shouldn't really have problems there, but it is still usually very obvious that you're not speaking to an Indian person at a call centre in the UK.

You can always ask if not sure and it matters to you. I don't care who I speak to, or where they are, as long as they're able to help - and that's down to the company.

Given the location of the call centres I often deal with, it's now very likely to be in Scotland or Ireland (Sky, Three, EE) or Darlington in the UK. Fortunately, I have little problem with accents!

 

[najaB]

The scam calls you get seem to use some very low cost routing, which has lots of delays. I assume that's because they can make the calls for near no cost, which is essential when they're cold calling all day.

Continuing the OT diversion, a low MOS (delays and poor quality) is more likely due to using VoIP providers who don't do QoS as they should, rather than due to satellite routing since sat prices per Mb are usually higher than fibre.

You can always ask if not sure and it matters to you. I don't care who I speak to, or where they are, as long as they're able to help - and that's down to the company.

Bringing it back to topic, that's the thing that matters. I've had excellent service from offshore contact centres and terrible service from UK-based ones. I don't make any assumptions based on where the call seems to be routed to.

 

[Greenback]

I don't think that there is any need to keep the thread open. It will only go off topic again.