Virgin Trains ends local station twitter accounts

[thenorthern]

According to Virgin Trains (on Twitter) from tonight each Virgin Trains managed station will no longer have its own twitter account and passengers have been advised to tweet directly to the main Virgin Trains account.

#VTINFO From the 29 June any info relating to #Preston please tweet & follow @VirginTrains - please use #VTPreston for local news

I am unsure what to think of this as I found each individual account useful as it gave information about the station I was traveling from however I did wonder what the point was having one for Oxenholme and Penrith given the amount of passengers using both of these stations is low by Virgin Trains standards.

What does everyone else think?

 

[Hobbo]

They have been useful... I particularly have found the Holyhead one particularly useful. The main reason is due to the fact that they can respond in Welsh or English.

 

[thealexweb]

I think this decision is a step backwards. In its determination to maximize profits, VTWC has cut its staffing levels back to woeful levels. When there is only a tiny handful of staff at their smaller stations some less important tasks have to wait, checking their individual twitter feed is one of these.

Another example of this is when I was at Wigan North Western a few weeks ago, towards the end of the evening rush on a weekday. I wished to buy a PlusBus Wigan ticket to continue my journey on the 715. None of the manned ticket booths were open. The one visible member of staff said she would be a while as she was busy completing other tasks. She advised me not to wait and to instead to go to nearby Wigan Wallgate station instead. Advising passengers to go alternate stations to purchase tickets that cannot be bought from ticket machines is just not good enough.

 

[rdeez]

Stafford station has an excellent Facebook page which has been a place for the station staff to share not just service updates but their work with the local community and charities. It appears this will be a victim of Virgin's new social media policy as well...a huge shame as it has put very human faces on the team and shown their dedication not just to their job but to the local area as well.

I really think Virgin are shooting themselves in the foot with this.

 

[BurtonM]

Step backwards indeed - @VTManPicc was really useful and friendly, and worked alongside @virgintrains and @northernrailorg where it needed to, as well as retweeting pictures and items of local interest.
If NRE can have Twitter accounts for TOCs...

 

[Tim R-T-C]

I'm guessing the issue was people tweeting queries at the station accounts and thus them having to be continually monitored. If they try and have a single account for customer service it avoids this duplication and ultimately is better for their customers as they won't be tweeting at the wrong place.

 

[The Planner]

Its about control and corporate message, why have the risk of someone saying something that makes the company look "bad" when you have have a team that are fully on message with social media policy. The fact they won't have the local knowledge etc doesn't factor in to it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm guessing the issue was people tweeting queries at the station accounts and thus them having to be continually monitored. If they try and have a single account for customer service it avoids this duplication and ultimately is better for their customers as they won't be tweeting at the wrong place.

Or did one of them say something they shouldn't?

 

[Chrism20]

Its about control and corporate message, why have the risk of someone saying something that makes the company look "bad" when you have have a team that are fully on message with social media policy. The fact they won't have the local knowledge etc doesn't factor in to it.

Spot on

Or did one of them say something they shouldn't?

More than likely and some poor man or woman has probably been brought to task for it.

 

[Greenback]

Twitter is a necessary evil. It's probably best if it's controlled centrally!

 

[dvboy]

That's a shame. @VTWolverhampton was very good when it needed to be, and tweeted about disruption to other operator's services too. It was especially useful at times of disruption, giving information about buses etc.

 

[IanXC]

Interestingly Northern are moving in the opposite direction, creating Twitter accounts for separate routes. Although presumably these are worked from 'Social Media HQ' rather than locations out on the network.

 

[yorkie]

https://twitter.com/VTPreston/status/614591436001046528

Folks folks folks please please be careful and plan you're journey we have had a few people miss their last train's.

Hmm.. maybe not a bad thing to consolidate the messages to come from one central media team with a good standard of English, based on the above tweet!

I'd expect better of an average Year 7 student.

 

[Greenback]

https://twitter.com/VTPreston/status/614591436001046528
Hmm.. maybe not a bad thing to consolidate the messages to come from one central media team with a good standard of English, based on the above tweet!

I'd expect better of an average Year 7 student.

Indeed. That's part of what I was getting at when I said it's better to be controlled centrally. Rather than having all sorts of messages go out from individual stations, with varying standards of clarity and literacy, just have one source to put out all tweets in a consistent and corporate fashion.

 

[adrock1976]

Could the stations feed local info to the central Twitter team, or will that most likely not happen at all now?

 

[Greenback]

I don't see why it couldn't happen. Whether it will happen, and how often, is another matter!

 

[SteveP29]

https://twitter.com/VTPreston/status/614591436001046528
Hmm.. maybe not a bad thing to consolidate the messages to come from one central media team with a good standard of English, based on the above tweet!

I'd expect better of an average Year 7 student.

Surely 'trains' was correct as it is plural, not possessive?

 

[Z12XE]

https://twitter.com/VTPreston/status/614591436001046528
Hmm.. maybe not a bad thing to consolidate the messages to come from one central media team with a good standard of English, based on the above tweet!

I'd expect better of an average Year 7 student.

The Greater Anglia Twit Team suffer from poor spelling and grammar so it wont solve that. There's even one who seems quite proud of his "should of" problem.

But hey, its humans answering idiots and their stupid comments in 140 characters, so who cares.

 

[Minilad]

Indeed. That's part of what I was getting at when I said it's better to be controlled centrally. Rather than having all sorts of messages go out from individual stations, with varying standards of clarity and literacy, just have one source to put out all tweets in a consistent and corporate fashion.

By doing so you can keep everyone "on message"
Unfortunately you then lose the human touch, the local knowledge, the feeling that the whole company looks after you and not just the out of touch suits in the ivory tower who often have no idea whats going on on the ground

 

[Greenback]

By doing so you can keep everyone "on message"
Unfortunately you then lose the human touch, the local knowledge, the feeling that the whole company looks after you and not just the out of touch suits in the ivory tower who often have no idea whats going on on the ground

This is true, but from a company perspective, the benefits will outweigh the downside.

 

[Mojo]

Surely 'trains' was correct as it is plural, not possessive?

"Trains" would have been correct, but they put "train's."

 

[yorkie]

Surely 'trains' was correct as it is plural, not possessive?

I highlighted in red the characters that should have been removed.