Avanti Complaint Handling

[palmersears]

I recently complained to Avanti about their farcical handling of releasing advanced tickets for a weekend in November when I wanted to travel to London. I’d tweeted them a couple of times in September and October to ask when they were going to be released, they couldn’t tell me but advised I sign up for email alerts for my preferred dates, which I did.

I heard nothing back, chased again a week beforehand (as well as checking every day on the Avanti journey planner) and was told that they’d been released in mid-October, and were now all sold out, leaving me with the more expensive off-peak return tickets instead. No email alert was forthcoming for the advanced tickets until the day after I’d travelled

They replied to my complaint along the lines of “COVID has been a bit of a pain, we’ll pass your comments on internally, here are two free first class return tickets to use if you shut up and leave us alone.” If I wished to receive a full response then I would get one, but only on the understanding that the complimentary tickets would be withdrawn.

Has anybody else had something like this? It just seems like such poor customer service to wave a few complimentary tickets about and hope complainants go away. Virgin were hardly faultless, but you would get a full response to a complaint from the outset and a genuine offer of appropriate compensation if they were in the wrong. Avanti are just seemingly sweeping things under the carpet.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Umm, Virgin were the ones who started the idea of bribing people to go away! They would send a seemingly random value of rail travel vouchers in response to any complaint, which would usually be in excess of what would technically be due (on odd occasions not, then you'd have to escalate the matter), but would mean any problem wasn't solved.

At one point this was so prevalent that it was worth writing in to complain about even the tiniest annoyance as you could well get £50 RTVs from the "lottery" just because of e.g. faulty aircon, no tea at the buffet or a toilet out of use.

 

[skyhigh]

Umm, Virgin were the ones who started the idea of bribing people to go away! They would send a seemingly random value of rail travel vouchers in response to any complaint, which would usually be in excess of what would technically be due (on odd occasions not, then you'd have to escalate the matter), but would mean any problem wasn't solved.

At one point this was so prevalent that it was worth writing in to complain about even the tiniest annoyance as you could well get £50 RTVs from the "lottery" just because of e.g. faulty aircon, no tea at the buffet or a toilet out of use.

Exactly this - they never really seemed to read complaints properly. I once wrote in after pretty severe disruption to give praise to train crew who went way beyond my expectations. I got a reply enclosing £40 RTVs apologising for the fact the accessible toilet was out of service...

Personally, if I got 2 free anytime First return tickets to use on Avanti I'd take that as a win, but it's up to you if you wanted to try taking it further.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Exactly this - they never really seemed to read complaints properly. I once wrote in after pretty severe disruption to give praise to train crew who went way beyond my expectations. I got a reply enclosing £40 RTVs apologising for the fact the accessible toilet was out of service...

Wasn't just them of course. I probably still have somewhere a letter from Regional Railways North West apologising for delays caused by the 1996 Manchester bomb, when in fact I had written in asking them what on earth they were playing at allowing trains to drop off in central Manchester without any sort of warning after the evacuation had started (the warning was given to Police before the train left Wigan Wallgate and long before Bolton, so there would have been means of passing it on had a system been in place). No compensation, but also no attention paid to the actual issue raised.

 

[AlterEgo]

I recently complained to Avanti about their farcical handling of releasing advanced tickets for a weekend in November when I wanted to travel to London. I’d tweeted them a couple of times in September and October to ask when they were going to be released, they couldn’t tell me but advised I sign up for email alerts for my preferred dates, which I did.

I heard nothing back, chased again a week beforehand (as well as checking every day on the Avanti journey planner) and was told that they’d been released in mid-October, and were now all sold out, leaving me with the more expensive off-peak return tickets instead. No email alert was forthcoming for the advanced tickets until the day after I’d travelled

They replied to my complaint along the lines of “COVID has been a bit of a pain, we’ll pass your comments on internally, here are two free first class return tickets to use if you shut up and leave us alone.” If I wished to receive a full response then I would get one, but only on the understanding that the complimentary tickets would be withdrawn.

Has anybody else had something like this? It just seems like such poor customer service to wave a few complimentary tickets about and hope complainants go away. Virgin were hardly faultless, but you would get a full response to a complaint from the outset and a genuine offer of appropriate compensation if they were in the wrong. Avanti are just seemingly sweeping things under the carpet.

Two first class returns! Blimey. Take them and go.

 

[palmersears]

Umm, Virgin were the ones who started the idea of bribing people to go away! They would send a seemingly random value of rail travel vouchers in response to any complaint, which would usually be in excess of what would technically be due (on odd occasions not, then you'd have to escalate the matter), but would mean any problem wasn't solved.

At one point this was so prevalent that it was worth writing in to complain about even the tiniest annoyance as you could well get £50 RTVs from the "lottery" just because of e.g. faulty aircon, no tea at the buffet or a toilet out of use.

I never got that from Virgin, but then again I didn't often find reason to complain about them (save for the talking toilets!), it was usually just delay repay. When i did complain they did take the time to respond, so perhaps I just got (un)lucky!

Exactly this - they never really seemed to read complaints properly. I once wrote in after pretty severe disruption to give praise to train crew who went way beyond my expectations. I got a reply enclosing £40 RTVs apologising for the fact the accessible toilet was out of service...

Personally, if I got 2 free anytime First return tickets to use on Avanti I'd take that as a win, but it's up to you if you wanted to try taking it further.

Two first class returns! Blimey. Take them and go.

I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, particularly when I wasn't really complaining about anything that horrific! It just struck me as an odd way to deal with customer complaints to simply chuck free tickets around. Are other TOCs like this?

 

[skyhigh]

I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, particularly when I wasn't really complaining about anything that horrific! It just struck me as an odd way to deal with customer complaints to simply chuck free tickets around. Are other TOCs like this?

I agree it does seem a bit odd, I can't say I've ever heard of other TOCs behaving in the same way.

 

[AlterEgo]

I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, particularly when I wasn't really complaining about anything that horrific! It just struck me as an odd way to deal with customer complaints to simply chuck free tickets around. Are other TOCs like this?

No, they're not.

Avanti of course used to be Virgin West Coast and had a policy of blasting out £50 vouchers to clear complaint backlogs whenever they threatened to foul DfT resolution timescales, as @Bletchleyite alludes to.

It was quite a good earner for Saturday overtime when I worked there! That paid for a few city breaks in Europe.

 

[robbeech]

Would you be prepared to give us the ACTUAL wording of their response ?

 

[ServerHoster]

Would you be prepared to give us the ACTUAL wording of their response ?

Here you go - I got the same thing.

Thank you for getting in touch with us.

We’re sorry that we’re taking longer than we’d like working on your case, and we completely understand that you’ve been anxious to hear back. We’ve had a difficult time on the railway recently, with the coronavirus pandemic having a huge impact on our network.

We want you to know that we have recorded your complaint and your comments have been passed on to the relevant manager internally. Customer feedback is used to help improve our service, so thank you for getting in touch with us.

At Avanti West Coast, we want to give customers the best possible experience and we know how much you expect from us, so we're really sorry to have let you down on this occasion.

Rather than delay things further, we'd like to offer you two complimentary First Class return journeys with Avanti West Coast as an apology for the delay to our reply and on the basis that these would be accepted by you as a full and final settlement of your complaint. You can book these complimentary tickets on our website using your unique codes, which are CODE and CODE. Full instructions for redeeming your complimentary journeys can be found below.

The codes are valid for 12 months for Advance tickets on Avanti West Coast routes. Each code is for one passenger making a return journey. Where you travel on our network is entirely up to you, as are the dates and times of your journeys, subject to Advance tickets being available. We hope that you'll accept this goodwill offer on the above basis. If you do accept and decide to use the tickets, we consider your complaint settled in full.

If you choose to accept, then there is no need to get back to us to agree this. Simply enjoy your next journey on us, First Class. We look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

If you would prefer to pursue your complaint, then please let us know by replying directly to this email. We will then cancel the complimentary journeys, carry out a further review of your case and be back in touch.

If you choose to accept, then there is no need to get back to us to agree this. Simply enjoy your next journey on us, First Class. We look forward to seeing you onboard soon.

Yours sincerely

Avanti West Coast