Customer Service? Whats that? (Merseyrail)

Member Name: allanjk

Product:	Merseyrail
Date:	05/05/02 (144 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Usually on time, Reasonable fares

Disadvantages: Levels of customer services, Old rolling stock, inability to cope with "as they occur" problems

I use Merseyrail nearly every day when I’m travelling to work just doing a short commuter trip from Birkenhead Hamilton Square over to Liverpool Lime Street to catch my express trains to Manchester.
For the most part the trains run ok. There is timetabled to be a train every 5 minutes from Hamilton Square through to Liverpool and the same frequency when returning so problems are rare.
However I do have major gripes with some aspects of the way they operate their stations/services. Firstly I often have to travel on the first train across to Liverpool which is timetabled to be 5.46 am. This train seems to rarely exist and it is a miracle if the ticket office is open for me to buy a ticket even if it does advertise it will open at 5.30.
I have also been stuck outside the station at this time in the morning with about 15 other passengers as a member of staff forgot to bring the keys to open the station up with. When one customer asked about them maybe providing a taxi for us so we could get our connection at Liverpool we were told, “How am I meant to call you a taxi? I’m not putting my f**king money in a phone box to call you a cab” Charming.
They also seem to have regular train failures one the Liverpool loop which will lead to replacement buses being provided, last time this happened I went and caught the ferry as there were close 10 people per seat on the bus.
Also the train departure monitors don’t seem to have up-to-date information on them. They will frequently say train due in 1 minute and remain that way for 6 or 7 minutes time.
Finally the rolling stock is dire. It is unclean, the seats are uncomfortable and the heating systems bizarre. The heating seems to be either stuck on full or none existent, when stuck on full I have seen passengers faint on the crowded commuter rush hour trains.
Overall the trains run reasonably to time, it’s just a shame about the trains and the level of “customer
service” (I use that term loosely) offered.

P.S. It also interesting to note that Merseyrail have the highest level of assaults on staff than any other rail operator. I think they’re lack of customer focus is partially to blame for that high figure.

Summary: