Why do ticket office know less ticketing rules than non-industry Railforum members?

[hkstudent]

I notice that many disputes here are down to the incompetence of ticket office staffs which they should be knowledgeable in ticketing rules and customer protection laws in delays and cancellations. (For example like the wrong excess charged in the Newcastle - Hartlepool case on disputes yesterday)

I wonder why some of them know little and charge too much to customers, while some of us who don't work in the industry are better in advising them how to, and at the end costs the customer service department of the railway to spend loads of time to rectify the issues.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Two main causes - inadequate training and laziness. I've encountered both quite frequently.

Also a measure of arrogance in some who refuse to look things up when challenged.

 

[LowLevel]

Because someone with an interest is more likely to look into minutiae than someone dealing with something of little actual interest to them, day in day out. Things like the black art of the routing guide are of no practical use to a ticket office selling tickets using a computer. The other thing is arcane knowledge stagnates - if you don't do something for 10 years you won't be very fresh on it.

On the other hand, a rail enthusiast with an interest may go into things in far more detail. However, it is important to be cautious as they aren't correct 100% of the time either. Plenty of rail enthusiasts are on the autistic spectrum in addition, with the attendant strong interest in fine details.

Add in a dose of human nature and there you are.

 

[zwk500]

I notice that many disputes here are down to the incompetence of ticket office staffs which they should be knowledgeable in ticketing rules and customer protection laws in delays and cancellations. (For example like the wrong excess charged in the Newcastle - Hartlepool case on disputes yesterday)

I wonder why some of them know little and charge too much to customers, while some of us who don't work in the industry are better in advising them how to, and at the end costs the customer service department of the railway to spend loads of time to rectify the issues.

This statement is a double edged sword. Enthusiasts are often right, but they are also often wrong.

For companies, it's a cost vs reward on the cost of training people. At a certain point, the cost of training people how to do certain things outweighs the potential revenue you'd get from it. Something like excessing an e-ticket, which would happen once in a blue moon. The PR damage of not being able to carry out the transaction or your staff costing somebody a bit more once a year is not as bad as spending thousands training people for tasks they never carry out.

 

[muz379]

Of course you can also delivery high quality training to start with .

But if someone sits there churning out singles or returns to the nearest town and the occassional advance to London or other nearby seaside destinations then it stands to reason that the initial high quality training will need regularly refreshing because the knowledge is never actually used .

Also if you work for toc A you arent necessarilly briefed on toc B's products even if toc B trains stop at your station , wheras an intersted customer is likely to research all options regardless of tocs .

 

[Bletchleyite]

But if someone sits there churning out singles or returns to the nearest town and the occassional advance to London or other nearby seaside destinations then it stands to reason that the initial high quality training will need regularly refreshing because the knowledge is never actually used

However, I don't think the ability to look things up if you don't know them for certain or if you're challenged about them being correct requires an awful lot of training. Failure to do so is classic booking office arrogance, and I've come across it far, far too often.

 

[muz379]

However, I don't think the ability to look things up if you don't know them for certain or if you're challenged about them being correct requires an awful lot of training. Failure to do so is classic booking office arrogance, and I've come across it far, far too often.

Been a while since I was in a booking office but it was always a nightmare to find certain products and if you couldn't find the products then you also couldn't find the restrictions .

Along the lines of not knowing or being challenged - one of the big things that frustrates me and I dont think this is confined to the railway is that people simply do not know how to say "I dont know" theyd rather wing it or make something up . Personally if I dont know something as a staff member I will just admit it and endeavour to find out we are all himan after all , sometimes that finding out wont be immediate though .

 

[Western Sunset]

Likewise, excellent train drivers might not necessarily know the date their train entered service, any livery variations it carried or the history of the lines and junctions they drive over.

 

[Mawkie]

I notice that many disputes here are down to the incompetence of ticket office staffs which they should be knowledgeable in ticketing rules and customer protection laws in delays and cancellations. (For example like the wrong excess charged in the Newcastle - Hartlepool case on disputes yesterday)

I wonder why some of them know little and charge too much to customers, while some of us who don't work in the industry are better in advising them how to, and at the end costs the customer service department of the railway to spend loads of time to rectify the issues.

I know you didn't mean it, but found this post to be quite insensitive.

In the 10 years I was selling tickets, how many weeks, days, or hours additional training do you think my privatised company gave me? Answer: 7 hours (and that was disability awareness, rather than ticketing).

Simply put, you get what you pay for. Companies don't want to invest in staff, so staff don't feel invested in their company. This often has a ripple effect throughout the company - "Why should I care if they don't care?"

If you work in the same ticket office every day, for example Blackfriars, you will end up selling tickets to Luton, Gatwick, and day returns to Brighton almost to the exclusion of all other tickets. How realistic would it be to expect someone to remember the intricacies of the UK ticketing sytem when the last obscure ticket they issued was a decade previous?

The one caveat to the above that I will concede is that if staff don't know the answer to a particular complex ticketing issue they should have the tools they need to give the correct answer rather than just flogging whatever ticket they think will do! (However, sometimes the passenger doesn't want to wait a couple of minutes, or with ticket office closures, and short staffing, sometimes the queues are too big to have the in depth discussions passengers think they deserve.)

I'm sure Yorkie will be along soon for an alternative point of view.

 

[Segedunum]

When I had a stint of retailing tickets by phone the impression I got from management was that we were expected to just sell the bare minimum related to the TOCs we worked for and that was about it. Anything too difficult or not in our remit, we were told to send them to a ticket office, online or to the relevant TOC.

As a result I used to do a fair few callbacks to customers with "difficult" requests during quieter periods or would sit with colleagues myself. There was absolutely no incentive to go "above and beyond" unless you literally wanted to. During busy periods too when you had calls queuing, going out of your way to help further was frowned upon if it made the call much longer.

Not always fantastic for customer experience but in the real world this is how things are. I was very much the outlier in being happy to sit through different options and even then, you can't sit all day and speculatively come up with different options.

Granted, the approach that ticket offices have to such queries can vary. I would much rather someone said they weren't sure how to sell something rather than the point blank "no we don't do that" many will tell you.

Newcastle Station was particularly good as you'd have the ticket office (for quick sales) and travel centre (for more complex queries).

 

[RailWonderer]

Most of the ticket officers in the South East sell London travelcards and seasons tickets and the odd local ticket and nothing else. An enthusiast who wants to travel to the other end of the country is something of a curiosity to them. They are just not used to having to sell complicated tickets.

A woman in front of me who needed 'the cheapest ticket to Harpenden' held up the queue for 10 minutes because the merchant was looking at the different ticket types and what trains they would be valid on. And they are not supposed to sell split tickets either. You have to find a nice officer who will sell you a ticket with a split.

 

[DarloRich]

Because someone with an interest is more likely to look into minutiae than someone dealing with something of little actual interest to them, day in day out. Things like the black art of the routing guide are of no practical use to a ticket office selling tickets using a computer. The other thing is arcane knowledge stagnates - if you don't do something for 10 years you won't be very fresh on it.

On the other hand, a rail enthusiast with an interest may go into things in far more detail. However, it is important to be cautious as they aren't correct 100% of the time either. Plenty of rail enthusiasts are on the autistic spectrum in addition, with the attendant strong interest in fine details.

Add in a dose of human nature and there you are.

Spot on. I cant add to this other than to say that the world of work is different to the perfect world. Many here overlook or do not understand that.

 

[BrianB]

I have some sympathy with ticket office staff these days, the vast knowledge base required is far greater than in previous years. When I started my booking office/travel centre career in 1976, first you had to go on a short course then pass a written exam before they would yet you near a public counter. The ticket range then was simply Ordinary Single/return, Cheap Day return, Weekend return, Monthly return, Seasons, Rovers and Railcards and the only interesting development was the introduction of Economy returns. Add in some indepth timetable and route knowledge and you were a top class salesperson in a top class team. I dont recall anyone in the team at the time (Sheffield) being weak or useless at their job and we all shared our knowledge freely to everyones benefit. The knowledge had to be in your head or in a manual as the tech was nothing more advanced than an NCR ticket machine, basically a glorified cash register. It was also instilled into us that if you dont know, you ask your colleagues and if they dont know you LOOK IT UP! With the relentless increase of online journey planners and the lamentable decline of Travel Centres, with today's tech it is very often a case of 'computer says NO'.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Most of the ticket officers in the South East sell London travelcards and seasons tickets and the odd local ticket and nothing else. An enthusiast who wants to travel to the other end of the country is something of a curiosity to them. They are just not used to having to sell complicated tickets.

Such as, for instance, an off peak day single from City Thameslink to Bedford at City Thameslink?

Yes, I've had trouble buying one of those, due to the ticket office person not knowing that that ticket had no evening peak restrictions. I was only overcharged about 20p to the Anytime, but it was still unacceptable.

 

[Sm5]

To be fair, it goes the other way too..

I once wanted a Southern ticket that covered the IOW (forgotten what it was called now it was pre-covid), the ticket staff had no idea, though i showed the NR page listing it, the guy then took it as a challenge went on a 15 minute mission including books and phoning managers to find it, and find it he did !

 

[Huntergreed]

Likewise, excellent train drivers might not necessarily know the date their train entered service, any livery variations it carried or the history of the lines and junctions they drive over.

Not a direct comparison, as the knowledge being discussed is relevant (critical!) to the staff member’s ability to perform in their role effectively.

A train driver having knowledge of the history of their train and line isn’t essential (though is preferred of course!) to their job performance.

The fact is, either training isn’t sufficient or some staff take no interest in their role. Indeed at one station I was at, a staff member told me they didn’t know the difference between an off-peak day return and an off-peak return when I asked for the latter and received the former!

 

[hkstudent]

I know you didn't mean it, but found this post to be quite insensitive.

In the 10 years I was selling tickets, how many weeks, days, or hours additional training do you think my privatised company gave me? Answer: 7 hours (and that was disability awareness, rather than ticketing).

Simply put, you get what you pay for. Companies don't want to invest in staff, so staff don't feel invested in their company. This often has a ripple effect throughout the company - "Why should I care if they don't care?"

If you work in the same ticket office every day, for example Blackfriars, you will end up selling tickets to Luton, Gatwick, and day returns to Brighton almost to the exclusion of all other tickets. How realistic would it be to expect someone to remember the intricacies of the UK ticketing sytem when the last obscure ticket they issued was a decade previous?

The one caveat to the above that I will concede is that if staff don't know the answer to a particular complex ticketing issue they should have the tools they need to give the correct answer rather than just flogging whatever ticket they think will do! (However, sometimes the passenger doesn't want to wait a couple of minutes, or with ticket office closures, and short staffing, sometimes the queues are too big to have the in depth discussions passengers think they deserve.)

I'm sure Yorkie will be along soon for an alternative point of view.

Cheers mate, I didn't mean it and thanks for pointing out an alternative perspective.
Sadly, with a much complicated ticketing and passenger protection system in this country, everyone seems to be on the losing side of mud of agreeing the "right way"

 

[Dai Corner]

Not a direct comparison, as the knowledge being discussed is relevant (critical!) to the staff member’s ability to perform in their role effectively.

A train driver having knowledge of the history of their train and line isn’t essential (though is preferred of course!) to their job performance.

The fact is, either training isn’t sufficient or some staff take no interest in their role. Indeed at one station I was at, a staff member told me they didn’t know the difference between an off-peak day return and an off-peak return when I asked for the latter and received the former!

A better analogy might be drivers knowing the various unusual routings they might encounter so they can drive safely if signalled over, say, a 25mph crossover when they're used to staying on the 100mph main line even though the last time was several years ago.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, it goes the other way too..

I once wanted a Southern ticket that covered the IOW (forgotten what it was called now it was pre-covid), the ticket staff had no idea, though i showed the NR page listing it, the guy then took it as a challenge went on a 15 minute mission including books and phoning managers to find it, and find it he did !

There are of course some very good ones. The thing is, to have value they all need to be very good.

 

[DarloRich]

The thing is, to have value they all need to be very good.

But real world: People just aren't ALL going to be good. Some of us are merely average at best.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But real world: People just aren't ALL going to be good. Some of us are merely average at best.

Even average would be fine - the problem is that it seems to me that the majority of booking office staff I have encountered during my lifetime of rail use (not a new thing) would come under "friendly but poor", with a few e.g. the muppet at City Thameslink popping over the line to "rude and poor".

Not knowing, and being unwilling to check, the time restrictions for a single ticket for a short direct journey from that station doesn't even get as far as the heady heights of being graded "F-".

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

When I started my railway career in 1973 the booking office course lasted 6 weeks and then I had an extra 2 weeks added on as the station I was going to work at dealt with parcel traffic as well.

 

[greyman42]

Because someone with an interest is more likely to look into minutiae than someone dealing with something of little actual interest to them, day in day out.

it makes you wonder why;
A. People take on jobs that they have no interest in?
B. Rail companies take on people that have no interest in the job?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Aug 2022 ==

When I started my railway career in 1973 the booking office course lasted 6 weeks and then I had an extra 2 weeks added on as the station I was going to work at dealt with parcel traffic as well.

Most booking office staff had an encyclopedic knowledge of the national rail timetable back in the 70s.

 

[Bletchleyite]

it makes you wonder why;
A. People take on jobs that they have no interest in?

Railway jobs are generally paid better than similar jobs in other industries and have better pension arrangements and strong Unions. So they're popular even in people who don't enjoy them, who take a "keep your head down, do as little as possible, take the money and wait for your pension" sort of line.

 

[Titfield]

To be fair, it goes the other way too..

I once wanted a Southern ticket that covered the IOW (forgotten what it was called now it was pre-covid), the ticket staff had no idea, though i showed the NR page listing it, the guy then took it as a challenge went on a 15 minute mission including books and phoning managers to find it, and find it he did !

I think IOW had been called the IOW Isle of Wight for a long time. The Romans called it Vectis but that was pre Stockton and Darlington

Perhaps interesting questions to ask ourselves (forum readers and posters) how much time have we spent on this forum, how much have we learnt from it, the breadth of knowledge we have learnt or learnt where to find the correct answer if we dont know the answer?

Probably a great deal more time than "booking clerks" who as others have pointed out spend the bulk of their time issuing a small range of tickets (destinations, ticket types).

I suspect that this issue is not just railway specific but encompasses many retail sales whether cars, furniture, consumer electronics etc etc.

 

[BrianB]

it makes you wonder why;
A. People take on jobs that they have no interest in?
B. Rail companies take on people that have no interest in the job?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Aug 2022 ==


Most booking office staff had an encyclopedic knowledge of the national rail timetable back in the 70s.

Part of my interview in 76 was 'heres an NRT, show me how to get to xx by 1800 next Saturday' followed by at least 3 more random examples, including the St Helier trick one

 

[Mcr Warrior]

...followed by at least 3 more random examples, including the St Helier trick one

Which was what, exactly?

 

[BrianB]

Which was what, exactly?

St Helier on the Wimbledon loop or St Helier Jersey. I failed that one but as i got the first 4 correct it didnt matter

 

[hkstudent]

St Helier on the Wimbledon loop or St Helier Jersey. I failed that one but as i got the first 4 correct it didnt matter

But hold on, isn't that station closed in 1930s, and it's not part of GB railway system.

 

[BrianB]

Part of the Sealink shipping network via Weymouth Quay