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What jumps out at me after reading this notice is how it completely lacks any apology. I am not prescribing what it should say but merely observing that having

by j0e1 5y ago

What jumps out at me after reading this notice is how it completely lacks any apology. I am not prescribing what it should say but merely observing that having lived in North America for sometime now, it seems hard for me to imagine for such a notice to not sound profusely apologetic here. Note: I do not consider words like 'unfortunately' and 'extremely unpleasant' apologetic. Also, I understand there are cultural differences between the Netherlands and the USA- no joke.

withinboredom 5y ago
Why would they be sorry? They’re the ones who are missing millions? of Euros in revenue due to this issue while the passengers just had to take a bus or bike somewhere. They probably would tell you that if you had to bike, it’s healthier that way. A little bit of rain won’t make you melt. /s
mnumber 5y ago
"Due to the enormous impact of the failure in the IT system, it is unfortunately not possible to run any trains today." I think the writer is more pointing the finger at IT than feeling apologetic. Imagine getting called an enormous failure by your adjacent department, that writer wants you to know who screwed up instead of apologize for their screw up. Seems more useful than an apology in my opinion.
fwr 5y ago
This is very consistent with customer service in The Netherlands - nothing is ever the fault of service providers, and you manage to convince them otherwise - you'll get nothing more than "unfortunately (...) not possible"
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  Customer service is done by another comapny. Source: It's me this time, NS customers service errrr....We help, it's called Webhelp.
coolgoose 5y ago
I don't mind the tone, I got tired of US style politically correctness just for the sake of saying it. How would "We are trully sorry for this incident" make it any better ? I do mind the fact that they don't pay the people their money back if they try to find alternatives to get to their destination. That's 100% unacceptable.
- shankr 5y ago
  When is being apologetic became politically correctness? Are we soon going to call every decent human like behavior in public space as being politically correct?
  - shapefrog 5y ago
    > When is being apologetic became politically correctness? When it became insincere or boarderline fradulent. "We deeply regret this one incident" - you regret getting caught and it has happened many times before and will happen many times again. "We are sorry, we have learnt the lessons and it will never happen again" - no you havent and yes it will. "Thank you so much this is delicious" - umm try tasting the food before lavishing your praise. 5* uber ratings for everything - need I say anymore?
    - coolgoose 5y ago
      Exactly this. Actions are more important than words, otherwise it's just political fluff. Again they should have refunded people, not care about their language, they didn't so that's a big no-no. Every company is saying 'sorry', every politician is saying 'sorry' but there are no actual follow ups and ways of fixing it.
    - Tepix 5y ago
      The cynicism runs deep. Did you know that cynicism is linked to depression? "The study was conducted on a group of 3,399 individuals, all from London and aged between 35 and 55. The personality traits that were observed included cynicism, suspicion, resentment and distrust. After the study period was completed, it was found that the majority of individuals who expressed these particular personality traits that were monitored at the start of the study had developed depression during the 19 year-period." https://www.bphope.com/blog/how-cynicism-is-linked-to-depression-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ https://www.bphope.com/blog/how-cynicism-is-linked-to-depres...
MonaroVXR 5y ago
Customer service is done by another comapny. Source: It's me this time, NS customers service errrr....We help, it's called Webhelp.

by j0e1 5y ago

withinboredom 5y ago

Why would they be sorry? They’re the ones who are missing millions? of Euros in revenue due to this issue while the passengers just had to take a bus or bike somewhere. They probably would tell you that if you had to bike, it’s healthier that way. A little bit of rain won’t make you melt. /s

mnumber 5y ago

"Due to the enormous impact of the failure in the IT system, it is unfortunately not possible to run any trains today." I think the writer is more pointing the finger at IT than feeling apologetic. Imagine getting called an enormous failure by your adjacent department, that writer wants you to know who screwed up instead of apologize for their screw up. Seems more useful than an apology in my opinion.

fwr 5y ago

This is very consistent with customer service in The Netherlands - nothing is ever the fault of service providers, and you manage to convince them otherwise - you'll get nothing more than "unfortunately (...) not possible"

MonaroVXR 5y ago
Customer service is done by another comapny. Source: It's me this time, NS customers service errrr....We help, it's called Webhelp.

coolgoose 5y ago

I don't mind the tone, I got tired of US style politically correctness just for the sake of saying it. How would "We are trully sorry for this incident" make it any better ? I do mind the fact that they don't pay the people their money back if they try to find alternatives to get to their destination. That's 100% unacceptable.

shankr 5y ago
When is being apologetic became politically correctness? Are we soon going to call every decent human like behavior in public space as being politically correct?
- shapefrog 5y ago
  > When is being apologetic became politically correctness? When it became insincere or boarderline fradulent. "We deeply regret this one incident" - you regret getting caught and it has happened many times before and will happen many times again. "We are sorry, we have learnt the lessons and it will never happen again" - no you havent and yes it will. "Thank you so much this is delicious" - umm try tasting the food before lavishing your praise. 5* uber ratings for everything - need I say anymore?
  - coolgoose 5y ago
    Exactly this. Actions are more important than words, otherwise it's just political fluff. Again they should have refunded people, not care about their language, they didn't so that's a big no-no. Every company is saying 'sorry', every politician is saying 'sorry' but there are no actual follow ups and ways of fixing it.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    The cynicism runs deep. Did you know that cynicism is linked to depression? "The study was conducted on a group of 3,399 individuals, all from London and aged between 35 and 55. The personality traits that were observed included cynicism, suspicion, resentment and distrust. After the study period was completed, it was found that the majority of individuals who expressed these particular personality traits that were monitored at the start of the study had developed depression during the 19 year-period." https://www.bphope.com/blog/how-cynicism-is-linked-to-depression-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/ https://www.bphope.com/blog/how-cynicism-is-linked-to-depres...

MonaroVXR 5y ago

Customer service is done by another comapny. Source: It's me this time, NS customers service errrr....We help, it's called Webhelp.