In praise of Virgin Trains
There is a God in heaven and she is Vanessa and is to be found in Virgin Trains Customer Services.
Upon calling said services to ask where the 7.07 am train from Euston to Liverpool Lime Street might have got to mid-afternoon, she sets about finding it – the jacket NOT having appeared in Lost Property at either Euston or Lime Street (both extremely efficiently answering the telephone to confirm).
Vanessa decided the jacket must still be above seat 41A on coach 8. Not only did she locate the train on its second run of the day to Liverpool, but she managed to deploy a Virgin Trains Operative to get onto the train at Liverpool to retrieve the jacket.
God’s assistant is to be found at Lost Property in Lime Street station. When I arrive, the sports jacket and bike keys returned, he charges £3 for my nuisance. I try to give him a £5 tip but he insists on putting it in the charity box.
So there you are, corporate Britain providing a service above and beyond the call of duty. Shall we try not to slag them off for a few weeks? If you would have asked me the chances of finding my jacket again complete with keys I’d have said less than 5%.
Related posts:
- Arriving at the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool
- Train companies impose an anti-bike culture
- Lance Armstrong – why not use two locks?
- We can use these cycle hubs to tether flying pigs
- Speeding through Britain on the election trail – but at what cost?
There are 14 comments on this post
You are not alone! Good folk of Northern Rail did similarly splendid job with my Then 6 yr old daughter’s beloved cuddly tots a couple of years ago. I ascribe it to a wish from most rail workers to do as good job as they can if possible and the accountants let them!
I’m glad Jon , for we might not have found the bail money ,if you had been caught breaking a bike stand and stealing your own bike.
More important though ,is the fact that Private enterprise can be so helpful and efficient.A nice comparison with the threats of left wing unions in the public sector promising unhelpful disruption with the argument they will be fighting for jobs they will inevitably destroy
Thanks for letting us all know.It will be a case of I know where Jon Snow was sitting ,I saw him this a.m. If it was merely me .. mere-cat-me ( like that, could use it some where) then no one would ever return the jacket and keys.
All Hail Vanessa. No really Vanessa, thankyou , its gives us bloggers somthing charitable to talk about in anticipation of Nicks speech tomorrow. We really need to be charitable there.
Does Jon snow travel first class otn eh trians?.
If he sold his memoris for 600000, he can afford to ahve a chauffeur driven taxi take me to merseyside.
These acts of kindeness happen the U.K. They wouldn’t happen in a country like Italy or if they did then the chances of finding whatever it is you have lost, would almost definitely be less than 5%.
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Jon’s a respected member of the 4th estate, so it’s in Virgin’s interests to pull out all the stops to assist recovery of his jacket. They wouldn’t want him Snowblogging about unhelpful staff, or remembering an anecdote when next interviewing train staff about UK’s exorbitant fares and the enormous public subsidy – Adrian, please note – the train companies receive from the taxpayer (apologies, don’t have figures to hand but easily found). Jon’s fare will be a justifiable reclaimable expense.
Virgin also charges £5 for 30mins internet use on the Euston-Chester route, which is extortionate. I invite a Virgin spokesperson to defend these charges, on the blog on C4 news.
It’s noticable how often our negative stereotypes get undermined, if we’re put in postions where they could be reinforced. I do wonder, though, if your happy result was because of the corporate priorities, or in spite of them?
And I must admit that my affection for the railways is sorely tested when, as yesterday, a Day Return for a two and a half hour rail journey via central London costs £131.
Sadly i think if you were ‘john smith from croydon’ rather than the [semi]famous Jon Snow of TV fame then you wouldnt have receive the same excellent service. I know this because my friend recently left a small bag on a train from Rugby to Euston and Virgin Trains were pretty unhelpful.
A sad fact that companies and people generally only respond to celebrity [or exposure on watchdog] rather than trying to deliver consistent and good customer service for the masses
I’m proud that Virgin Trains staff such as Vanessa very often do all they can to assist customers, whether or not they are celebrities. The only difference is that celebrity praise such as Jon Snow’s is more widely noticed.
http://www.bettertransport.org.uk is an excellent informative well-respected campaigning website which monitors the state of the UK public transport system, for which we pay – including directors’ bonuses – and campaigns for lower fares. Ours are the highest the highest in Europe. Snowbloggers might like to sign up to the email newsletter. The web can be an excellent democratic tool – as, eg, Virgin Trains knew when they helped Jon retrieve his lost property. One good deed doesn’t alter one bit the fact that capitalism is about profit, not people, the latter being considered only when it suits the bottom-line.
Meg “Capitalism is about profit”????
How else can a business run without profit??
Who makes the profit but people??(not always well rewarded)but only by making a profit can businesses survive and employ people
Have you not yet learned that the state does not make a profit ,but relies on those capitalist companies you so deride,to be able to waste its milions in inefficiencies,and employ millions in non productive jobs.
Without those profit making companies paying their taxes , you would have no state public sector
Sorry – I simply must comment on the redesigned St Pancras, too. Light, spacious, quite obviously “designered” to death. Endless opportunity to fritter time (and money, of course!) in a range of retail outlets. Yet, as soon as you try to use it purposefully (eg walk from the rail terminal to the underground), you are trapped in what appears to be an interminable and futile experience – actually arriving on an Underground platform seems to be a purely accidental outcome. Was the the new layout deliberately designed to commemorate “The Long March” endured by Mao and his followers?
Glad you got your jacket back, but it also demonstrates how little the train is used that no-one spotted the jacket, and how often it is cleaned (less than once per day despite making several London-Liverpool return journeys).
As for “both extremely efficiently answering the telephone” – er no… last post said that customer services originally kept you on hold for 7 minutes (that’s long!) and the second number was engaged. Funny how the fact that your jacket was returned clouds your judgement of these facts.
Alex – 1.03am. In the interest of fairness I refer you to Jon’s previous post where he clearly states he travelled standard class:
“Standard class to Liverpool all but empty. Virgin hate tables in standard class – two per carriage. I find one with an electric plug and one other man at it.”
Well im on day 68 and still waiting for some form or any customer service from Virgin.
Numerous e-mail sent with now two different reference numbers for those to chase up, one written letter to customer services and so far nothing but a lovely response that someone will be in contact soon
Customer service by virgin, don’t make me laugh this has to be arguably the worst i’ve ever encountered.
I wonder if any thing is logged with Guinness for worst customer service encountered