4 ms·

I 100% agree. My mother and her friend, both long retired, were on a vacation with their bikes, and on their way back by train, their train happened to be in F

I 100% agree. My mother and her friend, both long retired, were on a vacation with their bikes, and on their way back by train, their train happened to be in Frankfurt Main Station when a man was murdered in the station. All trains were evacuated, people need to wait outside the station. The trains leave at some point. People are now stuck in Frankfurt. The local staff knows nothing and no higher-ups are passing down information or make decisions. The local staff cannot on their own give out vouchers for hotels or they'd be liable if it turns out the management didn't want to (and would management ever want to?). I'm sure that wasn't a great day full of happy interactions for the staff at the station, and the abundance of federal police probably kept things much calmer than they'd otherwise be. Customers are stuck with no/terrible service. Staff can't do anything about it. Management has fun somewhere and doesn't care. It's like AWS outages being acknowledged hours later but with trains.

switch007 2y ago
Similar story with customer service on the railway in the UK. Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers, or just tell you to pay and hopefully reclaim. Nobody has authority to spend money. They have almost brainwashed the public that no event is ever the railway's responsibility to deal with just because they aren't the root cause. The are enough laws and contractual provisions to help the customer but they are being blatantly ignored, and the government is allowing it for cost saving purposes.
- wanderingmind 2y ago
  Yes this is the best course. Pay with credit card and then charge the hell back of everything for the entire vacation or trip.
- traceroute66 2y ago
  > Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers "common now ?" - I don't recall there ever being a time when UK railways gave a shit about their customers. :) British Airways however .... now that is an organisation that has fallen from grace. They used to care for customers. But after recent C-suites (Cruz, Walsh etc.) they've turned into a real horror show. Commiting to an over-ambitious schedule just to keep their precious slots at Heathrow, meanwhile everything else gets cost-cut beyond recognition.
  - switch007 2y ago
    I was particularly thinking of the open access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo who think they have zero responsibility for passengers and that getting you to your destination is a nice-to-have Train service was never amazing but has genuinely been getting worse through reduced staff and reduced empowerment of them
  - fakedang 2y ago
    I remember once paying the premium to travel British Airways non-stop from Asia to London. Nowadays I'd rather do the Abu Dhabi/Dubai/Doha layover (at a lower airfare too).
fakedang 2y ago
https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-frankfurt-train-station-killing-141122358.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-frankfurt-train-stati... Perhaps the issue isn't poor customer service, but a garbage importation problem. The staff and management don't really expect a murder to happen at a train station. You import the worst humanity has to offer, you make your bed in it. Meanwhile letting hundreds of thousands of actually legit white collar workers not obtain residency on time.
- cebu_blue 2y ago
  >You import the worst humanity has to offer I can't believe this has been happening in front of our eyes and nobody took notice! What do you mean?
- luckylion 2y ago
  The rambling aside: > The staff and management don't really expect a murder to happen at a train station. The staff doesn't. Management has to expect major incidents and plan for them accordingly, and have those plans ready to go, and train staff how to react to them. It could just as well have been a malfunction that leaves all trains stranded and the station unable to function. Their response would have been the same: we don't know, you're on your own.

switch007 2y ago

Similar story with customer service on the railway in the UK. Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers, or just tell you to pay and hopefully reclaim. Nobody has authority to spend money. They have almost brainwashed the public that no event is ever the railway's responsibility to deal with just because they aren't the root cause. The are enough laws and contractual provisions to help the customer but they are being blatantly ignored, and the government is allowing it for cost saving purposes.

wanderingmind 2y ago
Yes this is the best course. Pay with credit card and then charge the hell back of everything for the entire vacation or trip.
traceroute66 2y ago
> Too common now is for them to wash their hands of the customers "common now ?" - I don't recall there ever being a time when UK railways gave a shit about their customers. :) British Airways however .... now that is an organisation that has fallen from grace. They used to care for customers. But after recent C-suites (Cruz, Walsh etc.) they've turned into a real horror show. Commiting to an over-ambitious schedule just to keep their precious slots at Heathrow, meanwhile everything else gets cost-cut beyond recognition.
- switch007 2y ago
  I was particularly thinking of the open access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo who think they have zero responsibility for passengers and that getting you to your destination is a nice-to-have Train service was never amazing but has genuinely been getting worse through reduced staff and reduced empowerment of them
- fakedang 2y ago
  I remember once paying the premium to travel British Airways non-stop from Asia to London. Nowadays I'd rather do the Abu Dhabi/Dubai/Doha layover (at a lower airfare too).

fakedang 2y ago

https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-frankfurt-train-station-killing-141122358.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutors-frankfurt-train-stati... Perhaps the issue isn't poor customer service, but a garbage importation problem. The staff and management don't really expect a murder to happen at a train station. You import the worst humanity has to offer, you make your bed in it. Meanwhile letting hundreds of thousands of actually legit white collar workers not obtain residency on time.

cebu_blue 2y ago
>You import the worst humanity has to offer I can't believe this has been happening in front of our eyes and nobody took notice! What do you mean?
luckylion 2y ago
The rambling aside: > The staff and management don't really expect a murder to happen at a train station. The staff doesn't. Management has to expect major incidents and plan for them accordingly, and have those plans ready to go, and train staff how to react to them. It could just as well have been a malfunction that leaves all trains stranded and the station unable to function. Their response would have been the same: we don't know, you're on your own.