Northern customer service

[CHESHIRECAT]

Recently emailed them just commenting on the (high) volume of recorded announcements on the 195 and 331 units

Got a reply back 'announcements need to be loud so people can hear them' no s@@t !

Emailed back saying it was the high volume and they said what station was I traveling from!!

Am I correct in saying the customer service is 'outsourced ' as I hope nobody with limited experience would send such a nonsensical reply!!

 

[harz99]

Except a "Bot" programmed to respond to certain phrases and words...

 

[skyhigh]

The volume of the announcements (especially manual ones) has been noted and is being looked at for a future software update, I believe.

 

[py_megapixel]

Not just you, I emailed them about problems with the onboard toilets and got some generic PR statement which I assume was copy-pasted and had nothing to do with what I asked.

As for the announcements, I agree that they are too loud, though the digital displays are pretty good.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

Not just you, I emailed them about problems with the onboard toilets and got some generic PR statement which I assume was copy-pasted and had nothing to do with what I asked.

As for the announcements, I agree that they are too loud, though the digital displays are pretty good.

Thanks!!! The generic reply is hilarious will post later

 

[SuspectUsual]

How Northern twitter works

Customer tweets asking for travel advice

Northern don’t reply

Northern tweet inane quizzes and pictures of pacers

Customer tweets again, asking why they don’t reply

Northern reply with “are you on the move yet?”

 

[Horizon22]

How Northern twitter works

Customer tweets asking for travel advice

Northern don’t reply

Northern tweet inane quizzes and pictures of pacers

Customer tweets again, asking why they don’t reply

Northern reply with “are you on the move yet?”

I do think they could be a tad more receptive and be better at signposting but people do often use Twitter for a whole range of customer service inquiries, when, in reality, other platforms are far more suitable.

 

[Grizzly]

Recently emailed them just commenting on the (high) volume of recorded announcements on the 195 and 331 units

Got a reply back 'announcements need to be loud so people can hear them' no s@@t !

Emailed back saying it was the high volume and they said what station was I traveling from!!

Am I correct in saying the customer service is 'outsourced ' as I hope nobody with limited experience would send such a nonsensical reply!!

Good for you...have you heard the special ones that start "A Warm Welcome to all Key Workers..." They are even louder!

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

On the plus side they at least have signs for the plug points unlike TPE !

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 17:32 BST Dear The announcements on board have to be loud enough as we have a large number of passengers travelling with us and it is necessary that everyone can hear this and it is also for people who are hard of hearing and as such it's necessary to make the announcements loud so everyone can hear them.

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 18:17 BST Dear ,Please confirm what route your are travelling on and I will maintenance team team who can check if the announcements are excessively loud.Regards,

am writing this in response to your recent correspondence with ourselves concerning the volume of the on board announcements on our new class 195 and 331 trains. I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention and rest assured I have passed your comments onto the relevant personnel with the aim of tailoring any future developments to the needs of our customers which is reflected through your feedback.This will be fed back to the maintenance team for them to asses the situation to see if the volume needs adjusting.We always welcome feedback from our customers whether it regards a negative experience that highlights areas in need of improvement or just reassurance in aspects where we are doing well. As such I would like to reiterate my gratitude for your previous correspondence. Should you have any other queries or have any other feedback that you wish to share with us regarding the services that we provide across our network, then please do not hesitate to contact us again.

 

[ainsworth74]

Am I correct in saying the customer service is 'outsourced ' as I hope nobody with limited experience would send such a nonsensical reply!!

I believe it was and still is outsourced to Serco Carillion for most things and I'm not sure where it is now. The Twitter however are Northern employees based (or at least they were I'd gamble they're all working from home now!) in York Control in the Rail Operating Centre.

 

[GoneSouth]

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 17:32 BST Dear The announcements on board have to be loud enough as we have a large number of passengers travelling with us and it is necessary that everyone can hear this and it is also for people who are hard of hearing and as such it's necessary to make the announcements loud so everyone can hear them.

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 18:17 BST Dear ,Please confirm what route your are travelling on and I will maintenance team team who can check if the announcements are excessively loud.Regards,

am writing this in response to your recent correspondence with ourselves concerning the volume of the on board announcements on our new class 195 and 331 trains. I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention and rest assured I have passed your comments onto the relevant personnel with the aim of tailoring any future developments to the needs of our customers which is reflected through your feedback.This will be fed back to the maintenance team for them to asses the situation to see if the volume needs adjusting.We always welcome feedback from our customers whether it regards a negative experience that highlights areas in need of improvement or just reassurance in aspects where we are doing well. As such I would like to reiterate my gratitude for your previous correspondence. Should you have any other queries or have any other feedback that you wish to share with us regarding the services that we provide across our network, then please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Unbelievable meaningless waffle. I do hate corporate uk, what’s wrong with letting real people be themselves.

 

[py_megapixel]

I believe it was and still is outsourced to Serco for most things.

Is that a remnant from the Serco-Abellio days? I suspect customer service was operated by Serco then, and possibly Arriva just decided to continue contracting them to avoid having to set up new facilities and train new staff.

 

[ainsworth74]

Is that a remnant from the Serco-Abellio days? I suspect customer service was operated by Serco then, and possibly Arriva just decided to continue contracting them to avoid having to set up new facilities and train new staff.

No sorry I've just realised I've got completely the wrong end of the stick! It was with Carillion but I'm not quite sure what happened to it after it collapsed. Sorry about that

 

[Horizon22]

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 17:32 BST Dear The announcements on board have to be loud enough as we have a large number of passengers travelling with us and it is necessary that everyone can hear this and it is also for people who are hard of hearing and as such it's necessary to make the announcements loud so everyone can hear them.

(Northern Trains Limited) 22 Jun 2020, 18:17 BST Dear ,Please confirm what route your are travelling on and I will maintenance team team who can check if the announcements are excessively loud.Regards,

am writing this in response to your recent correspondence with ourselves concerning the volume of the on board announcements on our new class 195 and 331 trains. I would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention and rest assured I have passed your comments onto the relevant personnel with the aim of tailoring any future developments to the needs of our customers which is reflected through your feedback.This will be fed back to the maintenance team for them to asses the situation to see if the volume needs adjusting.We always welcome feedback from our customers whether it regards a negative experience that highlights areas in need of improvement or just reassurance in aspects where we are doing well. As such I would like to reiterate my gratitude for your previous correspondence. Should you have any other queries or have any other feedback that you wish to share with us regarding the services that we provide across our network, then please do not hesitate to contact us again.

That all sounds like someone who's English isn't their native language. Weird leading sentences which basically sound like "announcements good because hard of hearing oh but also this oh and also this" and some fairly odd phraseology.

 

[Kingspanner]

If you have a power cut where I live Northern Power Grid text the account holder with an estimated repair time. Because smartphones organise texts by sender, it is easy to see how many power cuts you have had and when. After a rather high (I thought) 5 in a year I emailed NPG Customer Service and got a prompt personalised reply, acknowledging the date and time of all 5 power cuts and giving the reason for each one. These varied from vandalism to a burning car colliding with a pylon. I was very impressed, clearly good work in the craft is possible.
Northern always ignore me. Network Rail once replied in terms which were as close to two words with 3 offs as it is possible to get without actually using them. Oh and they once lied to me using TPE as a go between when I dared to enquire when they might lift a tsr which had been in place at Stockton Cut Junction for a year.

 

[DB]

Customer Service is a bit of a misnomer where Northern are concerned.

Their replies (if you get one) are nearly always of the cut and paste variety (e.g. any question about train toilets will get a generic response along the lines of 'it's a local stopping service so it doesn't matter') and of no help at all. If they do promise to do something, it doesn't happen - e.g. I've raised the issue of a particular ticket not being acccepted by the barriers at a particular station on the valid route, and each time they have agreed that the barriers should accept it and promised to get it sorted. Think it's four times now I've raised the same issue, and been promised each time that they'd sort it. Obviously not travelling at the moment, but as of the middle of March it still hadn't been sorted.

 

[PupCuff]

Recently emailed them just commenting on the (high) volume of recorded announcements on the 195 and 331 units

Got a reply back 'announcements need to be loud so people can hear them' no s@@t !

Emailed back saying it was the high volume and they said what station was I traveling from!!

Am I correct in saying the customer service is 'outsourced ' as I hope nobody with limited experience would send such a nonsensical reply!!

I do understand it's frustrating when you get replies which don't adequately address the problem and when they are littered with typos etc which look unprofessional, but equally the customer services team member who's answering the query won't realistically be able to get on the phone and ring the conductor to ask them to turn them down, certainly on most trains it isn't like on a hi-fi system where you can just turn a knob to make them quieter. If you can give them a specific train (eg the 10:00 off Tinytown Junction yesterday) they can pass the details onto the maintenance team to get the unit looked at but if it's all of them then it's just how they were built then it's likely to need fleet-wide mods in one shape or form.

Back before I came off the trains we I used to get the odd complaint saying it was too loud, I'd thank them for raising it with me and that I would get maintenance to check it over, and often they'd say, can't you just speak into the microphone quieter? And you're having to explain it doesn't work like that (disclaimer - different trains will work differently and I don't know how it is on 195s et al), if I speak quieter into the microphone it will simply boost that to the same level (give or take a dB or two between friends) as it did when I spoke normally, likewise if I shout it will reduce the signal to the same level.

 

[Whisky Papa]

Is that a remnant from the Serco-Abellio days? I suspect customer service was operated by Serco then, and possibly Arriva just decided to continue contracting them to avoid having to set up new facilities and train new staff.

Customer Service in the Serco-Abellio days was in fact provided in-house by a small team based in Leeds. They were mostly experienced station staff, and the job paid a noticeable premium over the front-line retail staff. One of the staff was a near neighbour of mine who had previously worked at Todmorden and Hebden Bridge before I joined Northern, so I got to hear a good deal about the job - on more than one occasion she suggested I apply for a vacaant post there.

When Arriva took over in April 2016, this office was summarily disbanded as Arriva had their own centre based in Sheffield. My neighbour had already taken voluntary severance in one of the earlier rounds offered by Northern, and the other members seemed to find their way into various station retail and admin posts. I assume this office has continued to serve Northern since Arriva's departure, if anyone could confirm?

I think the Sheffield office was probably outsourced rather than directly staffed by Arriva, but to be honest, its provenance didn't trouble us station staff. What did trouble us was a tendency for them to make wrong decisions regarding fares disputes. If in any doubt, the old Leeds office would probably have rung the station to discuss the matter, and if they were going to overrule the station staff, would explain why that decison had been taken.

Stations used to fax requests for disabled assistance through to Customer Services in Leeds for input into the system, a fact that was completely overlooked in the 2016 franchise change. We were initially told to use the Northern public online application form, but that was completely uselss for our purposes. A means of emailing a scanned copy of the written form to Sheffield was soon established, which actually worked very well.

As @ainsworth74 says, the Twitter responders are in-house staff attached to the Control function. However, these seem to be recruited "off the street" for their lively personalities, make of that what you will.

 

[py_megapixel]

Customer Service in the Serco-Abellio days was in fact provided in-house by a small team based in Leeds. They were mostly experienced station staff, and the job paid a noticeable premium over the front-line retail staff. One of the staff was a near neighbour of mine who had previously worked at Todmorden and Hebden Bridge before I joined Northern, so I got to hear a good deal about the job - on more than one occasion she suggested I apply for a vacaant post there.

When Arriva took over in April 2016, this office was summarily disbanded as Arriva had their own centre based in Sheffield. My neighbour had already taken voluntary severance in one of the earlier rounds offered by Northern, and the other members seemed to find their way into various station retail and admin posts.

Yes, come to think of I do remember Serco-Abellio's customer service being rather good. I wrote an enquiry to them about something fairly trivial, I forget what it was but I was very impressed with the speed and quality of their response.

Compare that to now when I make an actual complaint and get a copy-pasted irrelevant canned responses...

 

[Adam0984]

Just to add to this the customer experience centre is now in house and has been since the collapse of Carillion, Arriva quickly outsourced it to an office in Sheffield which it still is but the staff are now more experienced in running a railway call centre (not as much as the original ones based in Leeds though with a lot of front line experience between them)

 

[Whisky Papa]

Just to add to this the customer experience centre is now in house and has been since the collapse of Carillion, Arriva quickly outsourced it to an office in Sheffield which it still is but the staff are now more experienced in running a railway call centre (not as much as the original ones based in Leeds though with a lot of front line experience between them)

Thanks for the update, and I'm glad they are moving in the right direction by going in-house. I've had to do one Delay Repay since leaving Northern two years ago which was handled very smoothly, otherwise I've no experience of the current set-up as a customer.

The Leeds office presumably dates from the old Arriva RRNE franchise or even before, but I don't know what the situation was in the former First North Western area. Certainly Leeds was covering the whole Northern area by the time I joined in late 2005, a year into the franchise.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

I do understand it's frustrating when you get replies which don't adequately address the problem and when they are littered with typos etc which look unprofessional, but equally the customer services team member who's answering the query won't realistically be able to get on the phone and ring the conductor to ask them to turn them down, certainly on most trains it isn't like on a hi-fi system where you can just turn a knob to make them quieter. If you can give them a specific train (eg the 10:00 off Tinytown Junction yesterday) they can pass the details onto the maintenance team to get the unit looked at but if it's all of them then it's just how they were built then it's likely to need fleet-wide mods in one shape or form.

Back before I came off the trains we I used to get the odd complaint saying it was too loud, I'd thank them for raising it with me and that I would get maintenance to check it over, and often they'd say, can't you just speak into the microphone quieter? And you're having to explain it doesn't work like that (disclaimer - different trains will work differently and I don't know how it is on 195s et al), if I speak quieter into the microphone it will simply boost that to the same level (give or take a dB or two between friends) as it did when I spoke normally, likewise if I shout it will reduce the signal to the same level.

If you read my original post it specifically referred to pre recorded announcements and yes fully appreciate he would call conductor of train it was a generic observation thank you

 

[PupCuff]

If you read my original post it specifically referred to pre recorded announcements and yes fully appreciate he would call conductor of train it was a generic observation thank you

I have read your original post and my point still stands, regardless of whether it's a manual or automated announcement the volume will be set either in the software or within the PA hardware. I said the opposite - they would not simply be able to call the conductor of the train to change it. The customer services team member will need to pass on the information to the train maintenance teams for them to review whether or not they feel it is excessively loud and if necessary can make the fleet-wide mods to the PA software/hardware.

Train maintenance isn't my area but there may well be a standard for audibility of announcements which requires them to be above a certain volume.

It is frustrating dealing with businesses when you receive badly written responses but it's important to remember that the person on the other end of the email will most likely a) not have a detailed in depth knowledge of the subject matter themselves, and b) will be trying to relate to you the information they have been given by the subject matter expert (eg a train maintenance manager) in terms that a lay person will understand.

 

[lyndhurst25]

I can't comment on Northern's customer service, but I agree that the automated announcements on Class 195s are way to loud, frequent and lengthy. Trying to listen to a podcast or audiobook is impossible while they are going on and I find myself putting my hands over my ears to drown them out completely, which is counterproductive. Just an announcement of the destination and next stop please. All that stuff about keyworkers, face masks, suspicious activity and remembering your belongings should be on posters, not blasted into your ears at maximum volume every few minutes.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I can't comment on Northern's customer service, but I agree that the automated announcements on Class 195s are way to loud, frequent and lengthy. Trying to listen to a podcast or audiobook is impossible while they are going on and I find myself putting my hands over my ears to drown them out completely, which is counterproductive. Just an announcement of the destination and next stop please. All that stuff about keyworkers, face masks, suspicious activity and remembering your belongings should be on posters, not blasted into your ears at maximum volume every few minutes.

Not even that, nothing Northern announces or puts on its posters could be classed as something passengers need to know.

 

[Sheridan]

If you read my original post it specifically referred to pre recorded announcements and yes fully appreciate he would call conductor of train it was a generic observation thank you

Are you complaining about how loud they are or how frequent they are? It seems like the Northern customer service person may have misunderstood your point for an understandable reason, although that doesn’t excuse the poor standard of the replies either way.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

This was my original email
'Whilst I realise on board announcements are necessary is there any reason the volume needs to be so loud! (The pre recorded ones)

It is the same on both the 195 and 331 trains

Best Regards'

That was it..Discuss!!!

 

[Sheridan]

This was my original email
'Whilst I realise on board announcements are necessary is there any reason the volume needs to be so loud! (The pre recorded ones)

It is the same on both the 195 and 331 trains

Best Regards'

That was it..Discuss!!!

That’s definitely clear and no room for misinterpretation!

 

[Bevan Price]

Recently emailed them just commenting on the (high) volume of recorded announcements on the 195 and 331 units

Got a reply back 'announcements need to be loud so people can hear them' no s@@t !

Emailed back saying it was the high volume and they said what station was I traveling from!!

Am I correct in saying the customer service is 'outsourced ' as I hope nobody with limited experience would send such a nonsensical reply!!

Have you tried requesting them to provide passengers with ear defenders, to protect passengers' hearing from excessively loud noise on some of their trains ???