Joined up thinking from Virgin Trains

[Alex C.]

I've got around to submitting a delay repay claim along with some feedback to Virgin for a journey which was delayed due to the problems at Lamington. The journey was from Liverpool to Edinburgh

I sent a covering letter, a copy of my reservations and photos of the ticket and reservations.

To be fair to them, they replied within 2 hours - to say that it was nothing to do with them and to contact East Coast as I purchased the ticket with them. I checked if EC would address the feedback about lack of support/communication at Liverpool and was told they would deal with the entire complaint.

I've now spoken to East Coast who say it is nothing to do with them as the journey was with Virgin West Coast and the fact I booked through their website is nothing to do with the journey itself.

I believe it should be VTWC so I've gone back to them.

I'm lucky in that I knew they were two different franchises - but for the majority of people, they are 'Virgin Trains'. Surely some joined up thinking would work here - whilst they might have separate customer relations teams, could they not have forwarded my letter on, rather than the current situation where both are saying it's nothing to do with them?

 

[Senex]

I've got around to submitting a delay repay claim along with some feedback to Virgin for a journey which was delayed due to the problems at Lamington. The journey was from Liverpool to Edinburgh

I sent a covering letter, a copy of my reservations and photos of the ticket and reservations.

To be fair to them, they replied within 2 hours - to say that it was nothing to do with them and to contact East Coast as I purchased the ticket with them. I checked if EC would address the feedback about lack of support/communication at Liverpool and was told they would deal with the entire complaint.

I've now spoken to East Coast who say it is nothing to do with them as the journey was with Virgin West Coast and the fact I booked through their website is nothing to do with the journey itself.

I believe it should be VTWC so I've gone back to them.

I'm lucky in that I knew they were two different franchises - but for the majority of people, they are 'Virgin Trains'. Surely some joined up thinking would work here - whilst they might have separate customer relations teams, could they not have forwarded my letter on, rather than the current situation where both are saying it's nothing to do with them?

In another thread BRX wrote: "I'd welcome the network being presented to the passenger as one "brand". Whether renationalised or not and regardless of which or how many companies were actually operating the trains.

This is effectively how London Transport operates. Lots of different private bus operators but the buses all look the same to the passenger. If something goes wrong the information all comes from TfL, not from the private operators."

Your example really makes the same point, very strongly. However much the politicians and the franchisees might like to play with their different brands, that is irrelevant to the end-customer who for the most part faces a monopoly supplier and cares not which company they are dealing with. It looks as if Lamington is shaping up to be a brilliant example of what happens when the railway does not manage to present a united shop-window and a co-ordinated offer to the customer (though I still prefer to use "passenger" as "customer" implies freedom to choose, which most of us do not have, for all practical purposes.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I've got around to submitting a delay repay claim along with some feedback to Virgin for a journey which was delayed due to the problems at Lamington. The journey was from Liverpool to Edinburgh

I sent a covering letter, a copy of my reservations and photos of the ticket and reservations.

To be fair to them, they replied within 2 hours - to say that it was nothing to do with them and to contact East Coast as I purchased the ticket with them. I checked if EC would address the feedback about lack of support/communication at Liverpool and was told they would deal with the entire complaint.

I've now spoken to East Coast who say it is nothing to do with them as the journey was with Virgin West Coast and the fact I booked through their website is nothing to do with the journey itself.

I believe it should be VTWC so I've gone back to them.

I'm lucky in that I knew they were two different franchises - but for the majority of people, they are 'Virgin Trains'. Surely some joined up thinking would work here - whilst they might have separate customer relations teams, could they not have forwarded my letter on, rather than the current situation where both are saying it's nothing to do with them?

Many years ago I worked for a TOC dealing with refunds and the policy we adhered to was very simple.

If the customer was claiming a refund due to a ticket issuing error, or because they decided not to travel then the issuing TOC would deal with the refund.

If the customer was claiming a refund having made the journey and been delayed then the TOC they travelled with would deal with the refund.

Needless to say this often led to refund requests being sent back and forth between TOCs before the refund eventually got processed. (The cynic in me suspects that it was a deliberate policy for some TOCs to say "It's nothing to do with us" even when it was their refund in the hope the frustrated customer might give up after being passed from pillar to post!)

So if you have made the journey then I believe VTWC should handle your refund.

 

[47271]

I book all of my travel through East Coast (as was) and regularly make Delay Repay claims off Virgin West Coast. I don't understand why they're giving you the runaround. Which TOCs were included in the originally planned journey, was it definitely Virgin and not TPE? And presumably Northern at the Liverpool end?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's the TOC that caused the delay that handle Delay Repay, so West Coast. It's the selling agent you'd go back to if a refund (due to not travelling) was required.

Anyone think there would be benefit in ATOC operating a single Delay Repay office? The criteria are near enough standard now.

 

[phil1960]

It's the TOC that caused the delay that handle Delay Repay, so West Coast. It's the selling agent you'd go back to if a refund (due to not travelling) was required.

Anyone think there would be benefit in ATOC operating a single Delay Repay office? The criteria are near enough standard now.

I'm sure it's been discussed before. But surely a better solution would be for ATOC have sole rights to ticket retailing (at stations and online) as well as after sales.

Phil

 

[Philip Phlopp]

Anyone think there would be benefit in ATOC operating a single Delay Repay office?

That would impinge on the great railway money-go-round though, which would never do.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I'm sure it's been discussed before. But surely a better solution would be for ATOC have sole rights to ticket retailing (at stations and online) as well as after sales.

Phil

That's Rail Settlement Plan as is, but with a couple of tweaks, surely ?

 

[Alex C.]

I book all of my travel through East Coast (as was) and regularly make Delay Repay claims off Virgin West Coast. I don't understand why they're giving you the runaround. Which TOCs were included in the originally planned journey, was it definitely Virgin and not TPE? And presumably Northern at the Liverpool end?

Definitely WC - ticket is a VTWC&Connections ticket.

I've now spoken to someone via phone at VTWC who told me that my initial email had been handled by someone 'up there' and 'they aren't always good' (their words, not mine). He couldn't locate any of my details so had to take everything again.

As above, I definitely think that maybe having one company coordinate sales, refunds and delay repay would be more passenger friendly - although that still wouldn't have helped here as I'd have needed to contact two entities, one for delay repay and one for the feedback about Liverpool.

 

[yorkie]

It's the TOC that caused the delay that handle Delay Repay, so West Coast. It's the selling agent you'd go back to if a refund (due to not travelling) was required.

Indeed. Perhaps the person at Virgin Trains who looked at the claim mistakenly thought it was a refund request for a journey that was not made, rather than a Delay Repay (compensation) claim. It could have simply been put into the wrong pile. I think it's safe to say they have a huge workload at the moment. It doesn't look good though.

 

[47271]

Here's hoping it's just been put in the wrong pile.

What exactly was the problem at Lime Street, I wonder if that's confused it a bit as well? You may well have been talking to Virgin staff there (if you were, the office there is very good in my experience?) but bear in mind their job is to deal with passengers travelling on the Euston service, and as far as they were concerned you were a Northern passenger on their station. That's why I asked about TOC at the Liverpool end?

I'm not saying that a lack of support to passengers is okay, but it may explain it, and it may explain (but not excuse) why Virgin West gave that part of the complaint the brush off.

 

[Alex C.]

Here's hoping it's just been put in the wrong pile.

What exactly was the problem at Lime Street, I wonder if that's confused it a bit as well? You may well have been talking to Virgin staff there (if you were, the office there is very good in my experience?) but bear in mind their job is to deal with passengers travelling on the Euston service, and as far as they were concerned you were a Northern passenger on their station. That's why I asked about TOC at the Liverpool end?

I'm not saying that a lack of support to passengers is okay, but it may explain it, and it may explain (but not excuse) why Virgin West gave that part of the complaint the brush off.

That actually makes a lot of sense - I assumed lime street was run by Virgin because of the big virgin office. The staff were helpful but my main issue was that there was nothing proactive to warn passengers of disruption. I knew about it from here but there wasn't a single sign warning of the problems in Scotland so the first I would have known would have been when I reached Wigan.

It was only feedback though which I wanted noting - I didn't need them to address anything as such.

 

[AndyW33]

It's actually run by Network Rail as it's a major city station with 5 (?) different TOCs

 

[TUC]

I'm sure it's been discussed before. But surely a better solution would be for ATOC have sole rights to ticket retailing (at stations and online) as well as after sales.

Phil

Why? Why shouldn't passengers have choice who to buy tickets from, as with most other areas of life? There's nothing magical about ATOC.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm sure it's been discussed before. But surely a better solution would be for ATOC have sole rights to ticket retailing (at stations and online) as well as after sales.

That'd work too - buy from nationalrail.co.uk rather than TOC sites. Though I suppose you couldn't completely rule out agencies.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Why? Why shouldn't passengers have choice who to buy tickets from, as with most other areas of life?

Because they're the same tickets. The so-called competition is as false as gas and electricity competition, which is essentially competition about who bills you more efficiently - but the irony is that the duplication means it all costs us more than if National Grid (or whatever they are called this week) just did it for everyone.

 

[DarloRich]

It happens from time to time. Someone will have misread the letter in a hurry to get through the no doubt MOUNTAIN of claims at present.

it isn't a conspiracy or anything - just a mistake. Write to which ever TOC you booked with and point that out to them.