I live a great distance from where I work and therefore have a very close relationship, for better and for worse, with the UKs train industry. I deliver quite a bit of customer experience training and a lot of examples I share come from this relationship! Two of these are particular favourites of mine:

• Where I live (on the south coast), there are three possible routes to reach the city where I work. My rail pass allows access to two of these routes. If (unfortunately all too regularly) these routes get blocked, I can sometimes get permission to use the third route without paying what is quite a hefty upgrade fee. Unfortunately, it can be quite difficult to get clarity when that option is available to me. I remember one occasion in which the tannoy at the station told me my usual trains were cancelled and I can use the third line to get to work. However, when I tweeted (or is it now x’d) to double check (I’m a bit paranoid like that), I was told that, in fact, trains were not cancelled and I shouldn’t board the alternative. To get some sort of clarity, I spoke to the staff member at the station and pointed out the advice discrepancy. She was very pleasant but she couldn’t understand the advice from the social media team and said that I should probably take the third train but can’t guarantee that the person checking the tickets on the train would be following the same advice. I was told “it should be ok”!

 

• On another occasion, I was travelling home after staying in the city for a few nights but my return ticket would not download from my online account. Without attempting to check my ticket, the guard at the gate simply waved me through. (I can assure you I definitely paid for a return ticket). The ticket inspector on the train couldn’t explain why my ticket wouldn’t download but accepted my email receipt as proof of purchase and the gate guard at my destination station briefly listened to my explanation, and let me through. None of them looked into the issue.

 

A few weeks later, the same thing happened. This time, the ticket inspector on the train phoned the company’s digital support team and was told that it was a known problem with the type of ticket I purchased via the ticket app which they are looking into. When i reached my destination, he walked with me to the gate, explained the issue to his colleague, and I was let through.

I acknowledge I can be quite sensitive to these issues and, as a customer experience professional, am always alert looking for examples for discussion. However, although quite convoluted, the two examples above capture perfectly one of my great frustrations that is certainly not restricted to the train industry. In fact, I would say that overcoming this in my own company has been my primary focus.

Each member of staff encountered is a “way in” to the organization. However, each offered a different experience and/or varying information. In both examples, it relied on me having more knowledge of the issue, or what others in the organization were saying, than each individual. This brings significant levels of doubt and mistrust (“should I really be getting on this train?” “Will the next member of staff know what I’ve just been told”). We must endeavour to support our teams to understand, represent and embody every part of the organization and not simply their individual area of work.

Crucially, this has to be much more than just a staff training issue as it relies heavily on the communication networks and systems, and organizational culture to deliver this effectively. However, staff performance will play a significant role. If we focus on the two differing experiences in the second example, we can see that playing out. Although the ticketing problem was identical, what was vastly different was the ticket inspectors drive to take responsibility and, first, contact the digital support team themselves. It is a frustratingly common occurrence (particularly with train companies I hesitate to add) to be told that an in-person staff member can assist with an issue because the ticket was brought online but, for whatever reason, this was not the line followed. The next significant difference came when he chose to walk me to the next member of staff my journey (those checking at the ticket gate) to pass the issue on – this resolved any anxiety I may have had that the next member of staff would have been equally understanding of the issue.

The member of staff identified issue, moved beyond his specific area of responsibility to identify any particular resolution and, then, took ownership of the remainder of that specific user journey. Unfortunately, the ultimate payoff was not delivered because, despite reporting the issue and finding out it was a “known problem” with that particular ticket combination and how it works with the app, the problem was not resolved a few days later as I tested to see if it was possible to recreate the purchase. The member of staff had the training, inclination and care to provide very positive “real-time” support to an issue encountered by a customer but was not provided the ability to effect organisational process, or customer support, change so that issue repeated.

It is clear that we have to make several step changes in order to get the most value out of our customer service teams. First, we need to provide the training, briefings and communication/engagement to ensure that they can take ownership of a individual user’s particular journey and this means expanding their responsibilities beyond their particular area of expertise. Secondly, to support this engagement, we provide the right channels, processes and systems to ensure that their voice, experiences and insights can effect change. Being Customer Centric means being employee centric too. By ensuring our daily working practices are aligned with our organisational story telling/culture, we show our staff that we mean what we say, truly value what they can deliver and build instinctive high performers. We’ll review this story telling in the next post.