Transport User Voice – Case Study

29 September 2017

Mrs G buys her son his Great Western Railway (GWR) season ticket from Guildford station as he uses the train to travel to and from school. A number of cancelled trains meant Mrs G had to collect her son from school herself.

As GWR season ticket holders have the right to claim compensation for delays upon renewal Mrs G went to Guilford station to ask if station staff could process this. Staff at the station advised they were unable to do as this was a South West Trains (SWT) station and that Mrs G must apply for compensation through GWR. When she called GWR it advised she must go to the station.

Mrs G kept on being passed back and forth between the two train companies and found the whole process frustrating as she simply wanted to claim back the compensation she was entitled to. This is when she contacted Transport Focus to see if we could help.

We contacted GWR on Mrs G’s behalf and it advised that it had given the correct information. Mrs G should have been able to get the five per cent discount on renewal and SWT staff have been given the information to process this. Despite the fact that it was not the fault of GWR it agreed to send Mrs G a cheque for the five per cent discount instead to resolve the issue quickly as they appreciated the inconvenience this has caused her so far.

When GWR saw that the compensation due was only £1.88 it offered to send Mrs G £20 in rail travel vouchers as a gesture of goodwill for the inconvenience. Mrs G was very happy with this outcome and we felt this demonstrated good customer service. The issues that Mrs G experienced with renewing the season ticket have been fed back to staff to prevent the same issue occurring in the future.

Back to newsletter