I’m a relatively regular long-distance train traveller and have been for almost thirteen years now. Not owning a car, the train has generally been the best alternative for getting around. Since I’m also a heavy Internet user (who would’ve thought? ;)), I was delighted when it became possible to not only check train schedules online, but to be able to order the tickets and print them at home, thus making it unnecessary to find time to go to the train station during their office hours to get my tickets. Of course, nowadays one can probably use the ticket machines even for long distance tickets, but I like to have some time to find just the right train and that’s just not possible if there’s a chance that at any moment, there’s a queue of people wanting to get tickets as well.
There is only one little problem with the online ticket service: it only works for Germany. No, that’s not entirely true. I can buy tickets even if my trip leads me into the neighbouring countries. But I will not get the pricing information nor will I be able to print the ticket at home. Instead, it is sent to me by post which means that I need to purchase my ticket at least two weeks in advance, just to be on the safe side in case there are any delays in their handling time.
Why am I telling you this? Easy. Next week, we are going to Paris for a few days, mainly because of the present I gave my spouse for our anniversary, but also to see a few friends. This trip will take place using the Deutsche Bahn, or Die Bahn. There are quite a few people that keep telling us to take the plane, but really, that’s just a lot of hassle for maybe an hour of time saved. There might be cheaper tickets, but less than a week before the scheduled departure, that’s highly unlikely.
Anyway. Since there are two of the aforementioned issues – trip into a neighbouring foreign country and less than one week before leaving – we had to go to the train station to buy the tickets. And I just knew that we would once again be dealing with one particularly lively lady. Like the last three times we went there to buy tickets.
When we arrived, there were already several people standing in line and only two counters open, one of which was indeed manned by just that lady. We were hoping to be lucky, but were not and so had to approach this woman who, even if she only says “Good afternoon”, makes me want to go to sleep. Seriously. Her voice is soft and low and devoid of any emotion or difference in volume or… life. And she generally takes a lot of time dealing with anything. But I was prepared. I knew what I wanted. Certainly, if I gave specific instructions, she would just type that into her computer and we could be out of there in five minutes.
Yeah, right.
The first wish we had was to take the cheaper of two possible trains on the way to Paris, one leaving at around 9 am, the other arriving at around 7 pm. If I do that search on the website of Die Bahn, it takes me less than thirty seconds per request. It took her at least three or four minutes and then she had to use her handheld calculator to add up the difference prices. I’m certain that’s not her fault but a flaw in the (horribly looking) software she has to use. The adding up of prices, that is. Finding the right train just cannot take all that long. Apparently, it does. And while we waited there, in silence, with more and more people arriving, our eyes were drawn again and again to the large wall-mounted clock. That seemed to had stopped moving.
Finally, we had the figures, made a decision – took us about five seconds – and then she went on choosing that train, looking for reservations – I never, ever travel without having a reservation whenever it’s possible – and did who knows what else while we waited and waited. After a while, she took the pages that were printed and began folding them. Almost like an afterthought, she added, “Did you want anything else?” … “Yes, a return ticket.” Duh.
Again, I knew what I wanted: a train leaving at around 10 am. I had checked up on it before, knew there were three possible connections that all left Paris at 10.01 am, but arrived here at different times, with the fastest arriving more than an hour before the slowest. But I didn’t know the prices but I trusted that since it’s their job, they’d sort that out at the Die Bahn office.
After what seemed to be hours later, she finally printed the return tickets. During all that time, I watched the screen though it was too far away for me to be able to read what she was doing, but either she did not know how to use the software or there was some other problem, for she apparently entered the data several times. I can only hope that she knows how to do her job. She’s been there for years, after all. In that case, I have to blame it on the software. It cannot be that difficult to create an easy to use software to ensure fast handling of requests – if their website already has such a tool! Admittedly, some information cannot be had online (pricing again), but it cannot be all that hard to add a module for that so that those poor people behind the counters can do their job in an adequate speed.
Had I had all information available to me at home, I could have made the purchase in less than five minutes. As it were, we spent half an hour in the Die Bahn office, ten of which were spent waiting for our turn and the rest to be spent waiting for the employee to handle two simple requests.
Now, I’ve worked closely with an inbound call center for a few years and know that time is actually money, especially in a transaction based payment scheme. I don’t always adhere to the policy that says “if a call lasts longer than two minutes, cut it”, for I think that a customer deserves to be treated with respect and also deserves their request to be handled in a timely manner – if that takes five instead of two minutes, it might cost the company a little, but if the customer hangs up and is happy, that’s a customer who’s more likely to stay – which means that they’ll continue to pay us instead of a rival company. In the end, this will save us money because we won’t have to spend a fortune in customer acquisition. At least not to replace old customers, but merely to find new ones.
There is a little problem: there is no alternative to Die Bahn. Of course, there are planes and I could rent a car, but neither is practical nor all that cheap and I still think that going by train is generally less stressful (unless they’re late as usual and you miss your connection). Therefore, I have to use Die Bahn. But they could really do something to provide work tools for their employees that ensure higher customer satisfaction. And tell their employees that even if they hate their job, showing it to customers is not the way to go. A smile now and then and some enthousiasm would go a long way as well.
