By Vineet Malik | December 24, 2022 | London, England
Jason Anderson, (name changed on request) a Scottish national was left shell shocked early this month for getting blocked at the platform entrance gate despite having paid for the train ticket in advance.
Anderson bought an advance online e ticket for a journey commencing from Glasgow to Mallaig and back. On reaching Glasgow Queen Street Train Station, he promptly showed an e mail with the payment confirmation and seat assigned to the staff employee posted at the platform entrance gate. The staff employee most rudely ignored the e-mail and said "I will not allow you to enter the platform till you download the ScotRail App on your phone and scan the Quick Response Code (QR Code)."
With little time on his hands, harried Anderson's failure to download the app due to poor wifi connection and intermittent internet on the phone panicked him.
Anderson's repeated requests were ignored by both the staff employee and the manager who declined his plea on the walkie talkie.
His instant decision to rush to the travel shop on the railway station in anticipation to seek help to get a paper ticket ended up with an arbitrary advice to buy another train ticket.
After 15 minutes of continuous drama and running from pillar to post made Anderson miss his train. He could only board the next train after waiting for six hours at the Glasgow Queen Street Railway Station. His entire travel plan was ruined as he missed another planned connecting journey that he was supposed to undertake.
"Adverse customer policies, mismanagement and failure to resolve customer grievances by ScotRail has made the company, the worst railway network in Europe." says Anderson.
The Scottish Sun in November this year reported about submission of more than 9,000 complaints over dismal services of ScotRail since it was nationalised by the Government on 1 April. A whopping cost of more than £400,000 compensation was paid in lieu of trains delay in last six months.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Joel Norton - Kalido says "Putting an app between you and your customers could be doing more harm than good. Instead of capturing valuable customer details and starting the process of building some form of customer loyalty."
"The process creates frustration, a terrible customer experience and potentially a lost customer as they go down the road to order from your competitor."
Anderson says "Unfortunately, ScotRail has no competitor that customers can switch to."
A debate among the Members of Parliament (MPs) of the Scottish Government in February termed the private-sector Abellio ScotRail deal as a "flop".
25 Years of juggle by ScotRail from Public to Private Sector and back has left more than 90,000 Passengers who travel everyday on different routes in Scotland at the Receiving End
On 1 April this year, the Scottish Government through Scottish Rail Holdings Limited terminated its contract three years early to take over the operations and ownership from the private-sector Abellio ScotRail.
Transport Scotland negatively reviewed Abellio ScotRail performance from 2015 to 2019.
The Scotland Government released information about the year on year complaints received from 2016 till 2022
Customer reviews of ScotRail on Trust Pilot were not good either.
Vancouver, Canada based Journalist, Analyst and Author John Koetsier says "Forcing us to jump through hoops is risky from a brand perspective. It’s understandable, of course: a mere mobile web visit may or may not result in any action. But a brand that gets an app install gets a window into consumer’s lives. Depending on the permissions you grant an app, brands can message you, see where you are, target communications and app experiences to you based on other data they have, and more. Essentially, they’re walking around with you in your pocket. Which is a valuable thing, of course."
But it also comes with dangers. The friction for consumers is real.
"And almost 80% of us have abandoned transactions in the last year because a brand wanted to force us to install their app in order to do business with them."
CEO Rahul Khosla - Heady says "Some companies require you to install their app to buy from them or access service."
“Overwhelmingly, mobile users hate this “You don’t propose to move in with someone on your first date. Apps are a long term commitment.”
The Revelation made an attempt to seek the accountability of the public sector company by writing to ScotRail Managing Director (MD) Alex Hynes and Chief Operations Officer (COO) Joanne Maguire.
Response received from ScotRail
Instead, Media Relations Officer Graeme Bulloch - ScotRail responded with the below cited explanation.
ScotRail provides barcoded ‘mTickets’ as they are a modern, efficient ticket option that customers expect. With no paper or plastic involved, mTickets have an environmental benefit as well. Since their introduction in July 2021, mTickets have proven to be hugely popular with customers. Tickets that provide a barcode within email, known as ‘eTickets’, are something ScotRail is looking in to, however, eTickets present a significant risk of fraud and misuse risk, and additionally, significant enhancements would be required within ScotRail’s retail estate and retailing architecture to mitigate this these risks.
ScotRail’s booking platforms are provided by Trainline.com Limited, Europe’s leading train booking platform provider. ScotRail has worked with Trainline since 2015, from the outset of the previous franchise under Abellio, and this working relationship continues today following the transfer back to public ownership.
ScotRail’s financial information up to 31 March 2022 is held by the previous franchise holder. ScotRail’s financial information from 1 April 2022 will be published in due course as part of the annual reports, following the transfer to public ownership in April 2022.
ScotRail continually listens to customer feedback and is always looking to find improvements for the benefit of our customers. Our white-label booking platform supplied by Trainline provides cutting-edge capabilities, and a roadmap of future customer-centric innovation meaning new features and enhancements will be rolled out regularly. The decision to introduce mTickets was based on customer research and the experience of other train operators which all pointed to a customer demand for this type of product. Since launching in July 2021, feedback from customers and staff is very positive, and is now ScotRail’s most used ticket fulfilment option for online bookings, having overtaken paper and Smartcard. Customers are advised to download their mTickets to the app in advance of travel so as to avoid any issues should internet access be limited.
Everyone at ScotRail is focused delivering the service our customers expect and deserve.
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