Virgin Trains - We Simply Don't Care

This weekend I was away in Edinburgh with my fiancé and we had a lovely weekend overall. It finished on a low note through the machinations of Virgin Trains, but I think also demonstrated a wider malaise with British (...and arguably even more so English) attitudes towards service and customer care.

For a busy Sunday afternoon train with an overall route from Edinburgh to Exeter, a trip which would take approximately ten hours for any passenger going all the way, Virgin saw fit to provide a total of five carriages. From the moment the train left Edinburgh station the train was massively overcrowded. I travelled the three and a half hours to Manchester crammed with increasing numbers of others just outside the First Class toilet. Speaking with other passengers on the train who make the journey more often this massive overcrowding was the norm rather than an exception.

Booked at a Saver rate a reasonable amount of time in advance, a return ticket from Manchester to Edinburgh is £55.30. This is a not inconsiderable sum of money, and despite the billboards plastered all over the station advertising their small numbers of highly discounted tickets, train ticket prices are in general expensive. It's far from unusual to be able to find equivalent price or cheaper domestic flights in preference to the train. A standard open return ticket from Manchester to London is £220, whereas such a flight on BMI can often be found for less than half that price.

But the British attitude is that people won't really complain, and they'll put up with any kind of rubbish service on the basis that "well that's just the way things are." We'll sigh or tut but that's about it. We'll accept that the privatisation of the rail services has done nothing more than provide certain companies monopolies on certain routes and allowed them to price gouge despite significant (and higher than under nationalised British Rail) subsidies.

And in general the British accept shoddy service as a norm not to be complained about. Which is what makes exceptions so noticeable. City centre Edinburgh was one such exception, perhaps because their is a genuine acknowledgment in that city that tourism is a vitally important part of the city's overall income, perhaps simply a bit of pride in doing a good job. With the exception of the most expensive (and smallest) Best Western hotel I've seen, my experiences as a consumer in Edinburgh were far more positive than those I generally experience in the UK.

While it may be somewhat ironic to use the USA as a positive comparison in a post initially about public transport, on a wider basis it's relevant. I simply cannot imagine a situation in the USA where if I'd paid for a service, and was a customer, that I would experience the appalling service I'm expected to put up with in the UK. Japan similarly takes pride in caring for the customer. For those countries the minimum standard is to provide a reasonable service and fulfil the customer's expectations, and the aim is to excel. In most of the UK reasonable fulfilment of customer wants and needs is the exception, and failure to do so is the norm. It's pitiful and embarrassing.

Cross posted to babble and stuff.