Delay Repay claims rejected

[Kite159]

Agreed! Especially as it all comes from the same pot now.

Unless it involves one of the open access operators and (I presume) TfW/ScotRail as well

 

[redreni]

Agreed! Especially as it all comes from the same pot now.

Even if you centralise the process, there's still every possibility they'll try to shunt 15-29 minute claims onto DR30 operators/lines.

I'd be all in favour of consolidating into a single delay repay scheme. As long as it's DR15.

 

[styles]

Agreed! Especially as it all comes from the same pot now.

Only if we kill off the open access operators presumably?

Not sure what % of journeys using open access operators are multiple leg mind.

 

[35B]

All delay repay should be centralised, the cottage industry of fobbing off should be nuked from space with extreme prejudice.

So any residual focus on customer service and satisfaction will be lost, and it will become lowest cost. A simple duty to pay if valid regardless of fault, and settle up internally within the industry would deliver the same benefits without the consequences.

 

[AlterEgo]

So any residual focus on customer service and satisfaction will be lost, and it will become lowest cost. A simple duty to pay if valid regardless of fault, and settle up internally within the industry would deliver the same benefits without the consequences.

Delay repay claims don't have any focus at all on customer service and satisfaction. It is merely a way of getting a refund with a robotic email telling you the money is on the way. What exactly do you think will be lost?

 

[35B]

Delay repay claims don't have any focus at all on customer service and satisfaction. It is merely a way of getting a refund with a robotic email telling you the money is on the way. What exactly do you think will be lost?

A corporate focus on seeing handling those claims as part of their customer service and relationship, rather than purely transactionally.

It’s poor right now, but if it became just a cost centre, it might well get a deal worse when the only focus is cost.

 

[SuspectUsual]

A corporate focus on seeing handling those claims as part of their customer service and relationship, rather than purely transactionally.

It’s poor right now, but if it became just a cost centre, it might well get a deal worse when the only focus is cost.

The only focus is cost now. There is no customer service element to any delay repay claim. Customer service comes into play with ex gratia payments

 

[35B]

The only focus is cost now. There is no customer service element to any delay repay claim. Customer service comes into play with ex gratia payments

You miss my point by segregating the two flows like that - I've no doubt about that. My point is about the relationship between train operator and customer (word used deliberately). The current set-up, however imperfectly, creates a common incentive about both cost and relationship. Split it out so that Delay Repay is completely separate, and the only focus will be cost minimisation, with no consideration of how that will affect their relationships with their customers.

The present situation may be poor, and give rise to unwanted consequences. Those need fixing, but consolidation into a centralised body will have other, unwanted, consequences. That's why I suggest focusing with the grain of incentives, to require any TOC which has provided service (actual or outlined in itinerary) to deal with the claim as if it was one that was their responsibility, and then to settle misallocated claims within a back office process.

 

[SuspectUsual]

to require any TOC which has provided service (actual or outlined in itinerary) to deal with the claim as if it was one that was their responsibility, and then to settle misallocated claims within a back office process

So you propose someone delayed on a journey involving three TOCs to have all three receive the DR claim and all three investigate it?

I really don't see any benefit for anybody.

The customer wants two things - the relevant financial redress (mainly) and some hope it won't happen again (partly). The current system provides the first one, and provides all the data for the railway to do what it can to prevent recurrence

Fundamentally, I think 99% (if not more) of passengers have a purely transactional relationship with the railway, and are happy with that. It isn't like buying a supercar or a mansion

 

[AdamWW]

So you propose someone delayed on a journey involving three TOCs to have all three receive the DR claim and all three investigate it?

I think they were proposing that the claim could be made to any of the TOCs involved who would pay out if there was a valid delay, and if they took the position that they weren't liable they could go about getting the money from another TOC afterwards without the passenger being inconvenienced.

The customer wants two things - the relevant financial redress (mainly) and some hope it won't happen again (partly). The current system provides the first one, and provides all the data for the railway to do what it can to prevent recurrence

Except it doesn't readily provide the first one when the TOCs play games each claiming that someone else is responsible and should be claimed from.
And there do seem to be cases where the rules don't even unambiguously describe who should pay out.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Except it doesn't readily provide the first one when the TOCs play games each claiming that someone else is responsible and should be claimed from.
And there do seem to be cases where the rules don't even unambiguously describe who should pay out.

Yes, I'm all for a single centralised claims function, because that's simplest and quickest for the passenger. Have said so many times before but should have made it clearer here

Valid ticket? Yes. Delayed? Yes. Kerching, here's your money

 

[35B]

So you propose someone delayed on a journey involving three TOCs to have all three receive the DR claim and all three investigate it?

I really don't see any benefit for anybody.

No, I propose that the customer may submit to ANY ONE of the three, and that one MUST process it fully, even if they're entirely innocent of responsibility. So, in other words, it's not for the customer to worry about the finer points of the rules, or the detail of how things get paid, and to know that it will be handled. So, to take an example, if I travelled from home (Grantham) to Dumfries, I could pick any of LNER/Northern/Scotrail (via Newcastle) or EMR/TPE/Avanti/Scotrail (via Hope Valley) and not need to worry as a customer why I was late arriving at Dumfries.

The customer wants two things - the relevant financial redress (mainly) and some hope it won't happen again (partly). The current system provides the first one, and provides all the data for the railway to do what it can to prevent recurrence

It doesn't work that well, hence the ping ponging that goes on here, and the ever deeper discussions about stuff that really shouldn't matter.

Fundamentally, I think 99% (if not more) of passengers have a purely transactional relationship with the railway, and are happy with that. It isn't like buying a supercar or a mansion

I quite agree - we are. That doesn't mean that you want to bake in a way of working that drives the provider further into that transactional way of working, and detach them from the need to provide customer service.

 

[Haywain]

Valid ticket? Yes. Delayed? Yes. Kerching, here's your money

Your optimism is admirable.

 

[35B]

Your optimism is admirable.

In fairness, that optimistic scenario represents mine and many others' experience - the usual issue of this forum in highlighting the adverse means that it can be hard to see what is representative.

As for the workflow, any purely operational function run on an outsourced basis with no direct customer relationship can be relied upon to make the customer experience worse. At the best, I'd expect all payments held back till the last "normal" date as customer satisfaction stats would come below meeting internal SLAs (and I can easily see one about cashflow being stuck in).

 

[redreni]

So any residual focus on customer service and satisfaction will be lost, and it will become lowest cost. A simple duty to pay if valid regardless of fault, and settle up internally within the industry would deliver the same benefits without the consequences.

I must admit my first reaction to this was to laugh.

And the trouble with it is, the delay thresholds are inconsistent. Take my journey currently ping-ponging between GWR and TfL (Elizabeth Line). Under your system I could claim from either, but if I claim from TfL, they'll just reject it because the delay was only 15 minutes and they don't pay for anything under 30 minutes. TfL aren't even going to bother arguing about who's fault it is because they can just reject it outright for not being a long enough delay. Are you saying, given GWR think the delay was TfL's fault, they should pay me and then ask TfL for the money? They're not going to be able to get any money out of TfL for that length of delay.

I'd like a central system standardised at 15 minutes, but I would rather leave it as it is than have a central system standardised at 30 minutes. As long as the minimum delay threshold is not standardised, attribution matters because it affects whether there is a claim or not - there is no way of making that not the customer's problem.

I do like the idea, though, and I don't see why you couldn't ban ping-ponging between operators where the delay meets both operators' minimum delay threshold.

They should also give the Rail Ombudsman similar powers to those the Financial Ombudsman has to require people to be compensated for having their time wasted by the incompetence of the regulated body. The possibility of having to give somebody £50 for wrongly rejecting their claim four times might reduce the tendency of some TOCs to fight to the death over £2 here or £3 there.

 

[35B]

I must admit my first reaction to this was to laugh.

And the trouble with it is, the delay thresholds are inconsistent. Take my journey currently ping-ponging between GWR and TfL (Elizabeth Line). Under your system I could claim from either, but if I claim from TfL, they'll just reject it because the delay was only 15 minutes and they don't pay for anything under 30 minutes. Are you saying, given GWR think the delay was TfL's fault, they should pay and then ask TfL for the money?

I'd like a central system standardised at 15 minutes, but I would rather leave it as it is than have a central system standardised at 30 minutes. As long as the minimum delay threshold is not standardised, attribution matters because it affects whether there is a claim or not - there is no way of making that not be the customer's problem.

I do like the idea, though, and I don't see why you couldn't ban ping-ponging between operators where the delay meets both operators' minimum delay threshold.

They should also give the Rail Ombudsman similar powers to those the Financial Ombudsman has to require people to be compensated for having their time wasted by the incompetence of the regulated body. The possibility of having to give somebody £50 for wrongly rejecting their claim four times might reduce the tendency of some TOCs to fight to the death over £2 here or £3 there.

I am saying precisely that GWR should pay and then, if the attribution is to TfL, get reimbursement from TfL. I get your point about differing thresholds; they are not the customer's problem but a consequence of the application of rules - a common responsibility would a) force alignment (and yes, I accept a reversion to 30 minutes might be likely) and b) drive clarity on the treatment of edge cases so that the rules are clearer.

I don't expect perfection; just consider that the organisational approach makes big assumptions about behaviour that experience demonstrates to be false

 

[redreni]

I am saying precisely that GWR should pay and then, if the attribution is to TfL, get reimbursement from TfL. I get your point about differing thresholds; they are not the customer's problem but a consequence of the application of rules - a common responsibility would a) force alignment (and yes, I accept a reversion to 30 minutes might be likely) and b) drive clarity on the treatment of edge cases so that the rules are clearer.

I don't expect perfection; just consider that the organisational approach makes big assumptions about behaviour that experience demonstrates to be false

A reversion to 30 minutes would be tantamount to another fare hike, quite frankly.

From the point of view of a commuter who makes short trips and encounters frequent delays, but rarely over 30 minutes, a reversion to 30 minutes would increase the cost of commuting by a notable amount.

 

[35B]

A reversion to 30 minutes would be tantamount to another fare hike, quite frankly.

From the point of view of a commuter who makes short trips and encounters frequent delays, but rarely over 30 minutes, a reversion to 30 minutes would increase the cost of commuting by a notable amount.

The alignment of thresholds would be a likely consequence of any alignment of administration, whether outright centralisation, what I propose, or a single GBR function. It is therefore something to be campaigned for (or not) independently of process improvements to ensure that people due payments receive them quickly and with minimum hassle.

Views will vary on the rights and wrongs of edge cases arising from the differences between schemes. I merely observe that Delay Repay is meant to recognise the failure of train operators to meet their obligations. As such, I have little sympathy for people whose costs increase to their proper price because the service is delivered to contract.

 

[DDB]

I would make it a function of the retailer, that is people's first instinct of who they should go to because that is who you paid in the first place. They can sort it out behind the scenes.
It is probably too late to change it now but that is how it should have been done in the first place.
I would change who I buy my tickets from to someone with a better delay repay interface. As it is I'm stuck with EMR for EMR delays and there delay repay website is one of the worst I have ever used.

 

[redreni]

The alignment of thresholds would be a likely consequence of any alignment of administration, whether outright centralisation, what I propose, or a single GBR function. It is therefore something to be campaigned for (or not) independently of process improvements to ensure that people due payments receive them quickly and with minimum hassle.

Views will vary on the rights and wrongs of edge cases arising from the differences between schemes. I merely observe that Delay Repay is meant to recognise the failure of train operators to meet their obligations. As such, I have little sympathy for people whose costs increase to their proper price because the service is delivered to contract.

The contract includes DR15 at the moment, in many cases. The proper price is whatever the fare is less whatever delay repay is payable given the performance of the services used. If the contract is changed to take away some of the delay repay entitlement, the service might be delivered according to the contact as amended, but the cost will have gone up. The "proper price" for trains that deliver you to your destination 15 to 29 minutes late would have changed.

 

[Belperpete]

Yes, I'm all for a single centralised claims function, because that's simplest and quickest for the passenger. Have said so many times before but should have made it clearer here

Valid ticket? Yes. Delayed? Yes. Kerching, here's your money

The issue would come if they refused the claim, who would you complain to? It is already bad enough when some TOCs (such as Avanti) customer service teams refuse to have anything to do with delay repay claims, but that would then become the standard response from all TOCs. Sorry, nothing to do with us.

I can't see a centralised claims function having much of a customer service focus. Their role after all would be to support the TOCs, by processing claims at minimum costs to the TOCs.

 

[AlterEgo]

The issue would come if they refused the claim, who would you complain to?

The clearing house, or, if still unhappy, the ombudsman.

It is already bad enough when some TOCs (such as Avanti) customer service teams refuse to have anything to do with delay repay claims, but that would then become the standard response from all TOCs. Sorry, nothing to do with us.

Nobody is suggesting getting the TOCs involved. Clearing house processes claims, invoices the TOCs quarterly.

I can't see a centralised claims function having much of a customer service focus.

There is no customer service focus to delay repay beyond paying the correct amount without quibble where it is due. It is a refund delivered by way of automated email, sometimes automatically. It is a blind process which does not deal with any human factors at all.

 

[35B]

There is no customer service focus to delay repay beyond paying the correct amount without quibble where it is due. It is a refund delivered by way of automated email, sometimes automatically. It is a blind process which does not deal with any human factors at all.

And that is a very negative view of the role of Delay Repay in the broader relationship between operator and customer. TOCs vary in their focus on customer relationships, and enshrining the most commodified relationships would be a regressive step.

 

[Belperpete]

The clearing house, or, if still unhappy, the ombudsman.

Why would a clearing house be bothered by customer complaints?

Your suggestion is made on the assumption that the clearing house would deal with claims correctly. The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes how wrong that would be. There is no reason to think that they would be any better at it than the TOCs currently are, and good reason to think that they might actually be worse.

There must already be a significant number of claims that are wrongly rejected, where the claimant doesn't bother to appeal. I think your suggestion would just lead to a dramatic increase in this, if your only recourse was to a disinterested and remote clearing house or the ombudsman.

 

[35B]

Why would a clearing house be bothered by customer complaints?

Your suggestion is made on the assumption that the clearing house would deal with claims correctly. The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes how wrong that would be. There is no reason to think that they would be any better at it than the TOCs currently are, and good reason to think that they might actually be worse.

There must already be a significant number of claims that are wrongly rejected, where the claimant doesn't bother to appeal. I think your suggestion would just lead to a dramatic increase in this, if your only recourse was to a disinterested and remote clearing house or the ombudsman.

Absolutely this. And if you want an example of this process at work, I suggest you look at coverage of the situation with Civil Service pensions, where there's a disconnect between an outsourced service provider* and the need of the employer to look after their employees.

* - Would you bet against a lowest price outsource to Capita, with adjudications by a back-office team on another continent with no knowledge of the UK?

 

[AlterEgo]

The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes how wrong that would be. There is no reason to think that they would be any better at it than the TOCs currently are

There is; there would be none of this ping ponging for a start. The claim would be assessed dispassionately by an independent third party which would not be incentivised to either palm off responsibility to another agency or to deny liability. Those are the two major sources of gripes with delay repay.

The situation at the moment is a huge heap of excrement because you have to ask the TOC, which already has your money, to please please please follow contract law and not tell lies and not withold the money and not say another TOC is liable. Then, maybe, you will get your money back, from a TOC which has every incentive not to do anything properly. The idea TOCs consider this part of their customer service function is fanciful - it now only becomes so once you appeal and/or write to them to complain about their bad handling.

* - Would you bet against a lowest price outsource to Capita, with adjudications by a back-office team on another continent with no knowledge of the UK?

You know, it is possible to ask for better things in this country and not discount every idea of improvement with "oh well whatever changes happen it'll be crap".

Is the ombudsman in India? Are the penalty fares appeals services in India?

 

[35B]

There is; there would be none of this ping ponging for a start. The claim would be assessed dispassionately by an independent third party which would not be incentivised to either palm off responsibility to another agency or to deny liability. Those are the two major sources of gripes with delay repay.

The situation at the moment is a huge heap of excrement because you have to ask the TOC, which already has your money, to please please please follow contract law and not tell lies and not withold the money and not say another TOC is liable. Then, maybe, you will get your money back, from a TOC which has every incentive not to do anything properly. The idea TOCs consider this part of their customer service function is fanciful - it now only becomes so once you appeal and/or write to them to complain about their bad handling.


You know, it is possible to ask for better things in this country and not discount every idea of improvement with "oh well whatever changes happen it'll be crap".

Is the ombudsman in India? Are the penalty fares appeals services in India?

I'm quite capable of supporting improvement. My question is why we assume that centralisation must be for the better, when the organisational incentives will not be customer aligned in any way.

 

[Trainbike46]

I'm quite capable of supporting improvement. My question is why we assume that centralisation must be for the better, when the organisational incentives will not be customer aligned in any way.

In this case, I think centralisation would be for the better because there are very clear issues caused by the lack of centralisation, as set out by @AlterEgo.

The arguments against centralisation set out in this thread all seem to come down "customer service will be worse", but I don't think that is possible in the vast majority of TOCs.

The arguments about incentives (against centralisation) don't stack up because they apply equally in the current system and the proposed centralised system, so there's no difference there.

 

[AlterEgo]

I'm quite capable of supporting improvement. My question is why we assume that centralisation must be for the better, when the organisational incentives will not be customer aligned in any way.

The organisational incentives aren't customer aligned with the TOCs either. DR is a blind function over which the TOC takes no customer focused interest. Claims are either paid or they are not, and frequently, a justified refusal causes annoyance and frustration with the customer, who blames the TOC.

If the claim is with an independent third party who assesses the claims and makes the payment, the TOC doesn't suffer as much reputationally, and the customer retains the ability to ask the TOC for further ex-gratia redress following conclusion of their compensation claim.

Under a clearing house scheme, the agency can't be incentivised to delay, defer, delegate or refuse claims, which is exactly what is happening now on a large scale. They wouldn't have a customer focus but then again neither does the TOC; that is pure invention, and I can tell you that because I worked for some years handing delay repay *and* customer complaints for two intercity TOCs. The job has degraded so much now with blind reliance on output and cost cutting that in most TOCs it is no longer fit for purpose. Some claims are *already* being decided overseas at the first stage.

Centralisation of the function results in an economy of scale - I hope the future GBR has plans to do this.

 

[35B]

The organisational incentives aren't customer aligned with the TOCs either. DR is a blind function over which the TOC takes no customer focused interest. Claims are either paid or they are not, and frequently, a justified refusal causes annoyance and frustration with the customer, who blames the TOC.

If the claim is with an independent third party who assesses the claims and makes the payment, the TOC doesn't suffer as much reputationally, and the customer retains the ability to ask the TOC for further ex-gratia redress following conclusion of their compensation claim.

Under a clearing house scheme, the agency can't be incentivised to delay, defer, delegate or refuse claims, which is exactly what is happening now on a large scale. They wouldn't have a customer focus but then again neither does the TOC; that is pure invention, and I can tell you that because I worked for some years handing delay repay *and* customer complaints for two intercity TOCs. The job has degraded so much now with blind reliance on output and cost cutting that in most TOCs it is no longer fit for purpose. Some claims are *already* being decided overseas at the first stage.

Centralisation of the function results in an economy of scale - I hope the future GBR has plans to do this.

A clearing house absolutely can be incentivised, directly by the people it acts on behalf of and in its own interest. This can be done by managing the timeliness of payments, the service levels for responses, and the degree of intelligence that's applied to assessing the more complex claims. They have no cash of their own, so will be reliant on payment to manage liquidity - that can be held up by CFOs determined to manage targets.

That leads to the logical contradiction in the first paragraph, where you state simultaneously that "DR is a blind function over which the TOC takes no customer focused interest" and "refusal causes annoyance and frustration with the customer, who blames the TOC".

My whole point is that this consequence of refusal, justified or not, is precisely where the customer relationship is part of the DR function, and commercial organisations will take interest in how they manage DR. Do it well and fairly, they get less aggro, lower costs and better customer relations; do it less well and they get more aggro, higher costs, and erode their relationship with customers.

There is an issue about the built in incentives to send cases round to others. It's inherent in the current system, and the behaviour is wrong. But the suggestion that the answer is large scale reorganisation into a central clearing house, detached from any customer relationship, will necessarily improve things is a triumph of hope over experience. It will entrench all the negative incentives, and only marginally touch the issues that get discussed here. That's why I instead focus on fixing the current core problem, and putting the obligation on the opertaor to implement the claim whether or not they are liable. The worst that will happen is that we get what we have today, but there is upside.

Large scale reorganisation, and further removal from the customer side of the organisation, relies on the assumption that corporate HQs and DfT will prioritise customer experience over driving costs down and meeting contractual SLAs. I see nothing to suggest that, in the real world, this will improve things for us - and plenty of evidence for why it will make them worse.