Memorable Rail Journey - anything changed?

Dear readers of that customer orientated blog,

Have you ever felt the emptiness of your words when talking to a service employee at -any- railway corporation? You feel like a piece of luggage and nobody -from the official body- is appreciating that you are actually paying their monthy salary. I guess I am not the only one around with such memories (and to be honest as I travel quite a lot on the railway tracks, due to my green attitude;-), I happen so see regularly events that are not driving potential customers into the trains but rather drive them out in their car-pooling, using their own car, or just abandon the railways (and talking bad mouth about their experience:-().

It doesn't have to be that way:-))

The only thing it needs is the willingness and courage to see things, talk about them in open public (why not publish in the papers?) and make officials aware that the CUSTOMER is an asset!

Thalys Journey says more on what happened during an almost 10-hour-trainride (could have gone to Boston in the same time almost - not quite as the qeues at the airport in Boston could take another two hours:-().

Toyota, the world leader in corporate learning and empowering people to their strengths, sees in problems always to become better in the future. Am I wrong when I have a different feeling concerning the service problems at railways around the world? Especially the ones in Europe that are talking like they would be THE FIRST customer orientated corporations in the country don't play to REAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION.

What was good?

Concerning that specific journey the connections between trains (in Frankfurt/Main and Cologne) was about the only thing that was good. Besides that I had to chance to have some rest and could read an interesting book (wouldn't have had the chance in a car;-()

What was bad?

Mis- and Non-Communication was the main driver to dissatisfaction and constant negative rememberance about the journey that started so well.

What have I learned?

Hm, difficult to say. Seems to be that every such event is like closed silo of information (nothing is leaking into the bigger organization and so nothing is changed, as far as customers can sense - you would surely run into similar difficulties again in the future. It is like my former boss always, "We have tackled the problem now, why find out what has been the root cause? Everything is fine now!")

Taking the initiative writing proposal letters to the railway officials seems useless and yet I can tell from own experience after some none-reaction efforts and letters you get to the RIGHT PERSON somewhere in the corporation jungle:-) And things can change, if the pressure is really too hard and you are not the only one who is making noise. 

Getting papers involved in the issue is quite useful as an event showed during the flooding in Dresden in 2002. In official press bulletin of the German Railway it was that helpers who would help in the aftermath in Dresden would be transported free of charge by German Railway. Turned out -after a call to the press officer- that this offer was just valid to the Red Cross, THW, and other "official" bodies. As soon as I got -while I was in charge of the help organization- the first helper on the phone I told him the story and advised him to get in contact with either a newspaper or a radio station telling them about it.

Guess what? Only a few hours later we got a phone call by the office of the CEO asking what would be the problem about the issue. I told him and had -as we worked officially with the City Council of Dresden together- a few possible solutions to make sure that people wouldn't use the offer for free travels around the republic.

Everything worked out fine and I was surprised what is possible in terms of change and attitude towards customer needs:-))

Wonder how this could work out this time?

What is the next action out of this journey?

Interesting question and I would say, let go and see which intervention would be most useful to get the most for customers (potential, present and future) and the Thalys (by the way, German Railways, are also in need for some change towards customer orientation -but that is another story to be posted soon;-))

Please feel free to tell your stories (let me know and I will add you as contributor and writer on the blog).

Best regards and save and joyful travels around whereever you may be

Ralf

Memorable Journey (2/2)

As promised, back on the writing deck;-)

The train is still waiting at Aachen Central Station which is -generally speaking- quite normal (for some time;-)) and then the unnormal events take place.

• First of all one of the conductors is leaving the train (it is the German one), even though the passengers don't change much in number (there is not coming a second one).
• A slight delay as everybody could sense and see (comparing scheduled time to actual time
• Suddenly - would have been nice at night- the lights in the Thalys go out, and one has the feeling that someone is trying to restart the engine (surely not a car's one;-)); this goes on for a quarter of an hour, shutting off lights, trying to restart - no info yet:-((

Then the inevitable happens: it is announced that the train can't go on towards Paris (passing Brussels where my interview partner is going to pick me up at 14:35h, the scheduled arrival time). It was like a flooding - only this time people are flooding the railway office downstairs to check whether and how to reach the connection trains (from Brussels there is starting an Eurostar towards London via the Channel). Nobody of the staff has a clue how to handle that, no general information for these passengers - I wonder which courses the staff has undertaken to cope with such situations in general? Nothing serious really and yet something with great impact on customer satisfaction (there will be stories like mine being told after the journey is over and the memories of a bad and unpleasant railway journey will drive people again on the roads - with negative impact on climate change:-().

After about 10 minutes standing in line, translating for some English, there is a rumour heard (nothing clearly said via loudspeaker, just word-of-mouth and yet we all get it):

THE TRAIN CAN CONTINUE ITS JOURNEY TOWARDS PARIS (with some slight delay of about 80 minutes by this time;-() and -I can't believe that!- a FULL REFUND for the travel (to be refunded at a Thalys office - which is something of a constraint as we will see later)

Everybody who has not left Aachen Central Station via other means of transport is jumping back on the Thalys and off we go - a good feeling and yet I phone to Brussels to announce my late coming - my interview partner is driving into Brussels from the country side to pick me up).

The green hills of Belgium pass alongside, we enjoy the ride and think of our destinations (some of us are seeing their families in Paris, others are travelling further up to Scotland via the Eurostar connection, and I will have a job interview in Brussels, which I am really looking forward to). So we have all our day dreams and everything seems fine.

...until Liége.

Entering the Central Station I think by myself, "Good that I am heading further to Brussels, as this looks rather grey and unwelcoming!". Reality should take hold of that thought quicker than I can imagine.

It is when we are leaving the station up a rather small hill and a signal makes us stop on the tracks. Probably we have messed up the schedules of other trains by our late coming? Ok, some waiting will be necessary.

Suddenly I feel like beamed into Aachen again, as the engine is shut off, lights go of and the previously experienced procedure comes into life again. 

"What is going on?"

"Didn't the conductor say in Aachen, everything would be ok? Where, by the way is he anyway? Haven't seen anybody of the personal coming along in our coach."

So, while all other passengers (around 300 I guess in 6-7 coaches) stay seated I take a walk to fulfill my natural curiousity, to find out what is really going on. Wandering through every coach everywhere the same picture, people talking and waiting for the inevitable (Do I see action? Where are the people of today who take personal responsibility of the reality they are in? Anybody thinking the same as me, finding out about the root-causes (yeah, here my lean thinking passion comes through - especially as I am a customer, a rather small one in terms of cash I bring Thalys (merely 42 € for the distance between Aachen and Brussels) and yet a CUSTOMER that brings money in today and will in the future (eventually;-)).

Another hour waiting just a few meters from Liége Central Station and soon we hear that the train has been running with 60% of its power due to engine problems and now that small hill is being a BIG PROBLEM to overcome.

Alright, what to do? Phoning my interview partner again, as he would be still too early at Brussels Central Station waiting for nothing and wait for what will come.

Soon we travel back into Liége Central Station and new miscommunication happens, as nobody knows which train to catch (there is standing an IC on the opposite track), some people stay on the Thalys until after some more minutes the conductor is telling everybody, that THIS THALYS is going to nowhere!

What to do? Jumping on the IC? Is it the right one? Reading the schedules on the track to find out whether this is the correct one to Brussels is not easy (French, different layout where you have to know which is the destination and then you can check which trains are running in that direction). 

Chaos! Chaos! Chaos!

Finally, just before moving the IC opens up the doors again (thanks to a service guy who was phoning the folks on this train) and loads of Thalys passengers flow into this IC which again is delayed with about 20-30 min to its initial departure.

A hell lot of experiences you really don't like to have yourself and yet this is the STARTING POINT to deliver better service in the future (NOT ONLY AT THALYS but everywhere in the service world).

What was good?

What was bad?

What have I learned?

What is the next action out this journey?

(four simple questions, which I have learned from my dear friends from Monkey Business)

I will answer them in a follow up and the personell (up and down the ladder) of service institutions such as railway companies shall practice these as well.

Together we can co-create a profitable and yet sustainable future of public transport and rail travels (which I really prefer pretty much:-))

Memorable Journey (1/2)

Late summer 2008, a fun weekend of Ultimate Frisbee in Amsterdam is laying ahead and before that I arranged a job interview with a dear friend in Brussels. It has taken us about four months since our first -coincidental and driven by syncronicity- meeting far down at the Indian Ocean in Oman, during the 3rd SoL Global Forum to make that happen.

As I always do, being fond of public and rail transport, I take the train for such travels - much more relaxed travelling with time to sleep, read and talk. Getting the ticket for the distance from the German-Belgian border to Brussels (I own a German Railway Pass for unlimited travels) was rather time consuming and couldn't be done via internet (strange in times of globalization and web 2.0 solutions - I wondered;-().  I leave Leipzig early in the morning with an ICE (just recently the ones running between Leipzig and Frankfurt - where I was heading to catch the next connection - are not running due to problems with axles;-() with an approximate arrival time in Brussels around 2:35pm in the afternoon.

Even though we are a bit delayed on the route to Frankfurt everything works fine and the super-highspeed (compared to French TGV, that is rather slow travelling with a speed of around 300 km/h) to Cologne could be caught. Everything seems working flawlessly - like it should and probably most of time does. It is only the single events that come into the public and nobody talks about what is going like it should.

Cologne - second connection on the way - changing to the Thalys which is starting its way from Cologne to Paris via Brussels. Like the last time (it had been to a Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Brussels two years earlier) people are rushing, coaches are packed and litte space for luggage and the interior somehow looks worn (must be the heavy use of rail travellers;-)).

I enjoy the ride with the other folks on the train, which is a real multi-lingual, and multi-cultural conglomorate (English, French, Arabs, Turkish, German, you name it) and it was fun listening to all the different voices. Besides I was going to an interview, looking forward to two days of excellent Frisbee at ADAM (actually the most choice HAT Tournament I know Breakfast on Sunday is a MUST:-)).

Always curious about service and how customers are treated (everywhere I am a customer I play two roles: customer, observer (=mirror to service personal) I scan the overall situation and especially what could be made better to achieve an excetional service (which will attract future -presently potential- customers).

Due to the multi-lingual passengers the announcements have been in three languages (French, German, English) and there have two (?) conductors on board of the Thalys (German, French).

I am reading my books and let the landscape pass and then we arrive in Aachen - the border town before we move into Belgium. As the non rail traveller must know the electricity system changes from German Railway to Belgium Railway (the Thalys is multi-system capable which makes a great positive impact on the travelling time as locomotion changes are not necessary).

That shall be the first part of the story which will continue in part 2 following over the weekend and Aachen is where the troubles started (which eventually made it an unforgettable journey).

See you

Ralf