Missing a trick?

24th Feb 2010 A passion and truth by Tom

Last week, I experienced a rather miserable train journey from London Euston to Birmingham New Street, whereby I had to stand in a packed doorway for an hour and a half due to the all-too-common problem, over overcrowding. Whilst I appreciate that this will always happen, what was frustrating was that there were no fewer than four first class carriages, but only a handful of first class passengers on the train, meaning that I was just a few sliding doors away from a sea of empty seats.

Now, I’m no Sir Nicholas Winterton, but it occurred to me that Virgin Trains is missing a trick in not seeking to redress this problem. Last month, I blogged about the top trends for 2010, including ‘random acts of kindness’, so surely here was a missed opportunity. It wouldn’t have been much trouble to offer the empty first class seats to those standing in the aisles (which is presumably a safety hazard anyway - apparently luggage in the aisle is, but not people it would seem) simply as an act of kindness. I had paid handsomely for the privilege of standing after all. In fact, I would have paid a small amount extra there and then to sit in first class. Instead, I overheard the manager informing someone else, who was thinking along the same lines as myself, that it would cost £105 to upgrade… I wasn’t that tempted in the end!

I understand that such an offer could potentially rile the first class passengers, who will have paid for their seat, if a number of standard class passengers suddenly arrived to sit by them. But let’s remember that what they have actually paid for is the guarantee of a comfortable seat and a few extras, and this ‘problem’ will only occur when the train is uncomfortably overcrowded.

The ability for them to offer these seats was there, but as far as I know, they remained empty.

This experience led me to personally activate one of the other trends mentioned previously – real time reviews. This blog was written (or rather it was scrawled in note form onto a pad as I battled the swaying train) during my journey, such was my annoyance. And had I have been in a possession of a smartphone at the time, I would probably have Tweeted my views too.

But had I been offered some sort of solution to the overcrowding, I more likely would have told friends and family how well I had been treated, and this blog will have had a very different tone. As it turns out, I have told friends and family how disappointing my experience has been. Compare to this to what these people are likely to tell their friends about their experiences of Coca-Cola in their latest campaign ‘Where will the happiness strike next?’.

Bad experiences are never totally unavoidable, but it’s how companies deal with the experience that determines whether customers come away singing their praises or cursing under their breath – or worse, in the open. Of course, companies can always fix the problem in the first place – in this case, having fewer first class carriages and more standard class – but at least fixing the experience would have let to a lot of positive word of mouth from me, and perhaps a bit more loyalty.

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