Have you noticed these things during all the snow disruption?
1) Company websites are referred to in phone messages and by the media: “for the latest information, go to our website at ….”
2) The company websites don’t have any information
3) If they do it’s often wrong
The brand damage accrues……
Some examples:
Look at these examples of BAA and flybe’s sites at lunchtime Friday Dec 18th. I was due to pick up my girlfriend at Gatwick in the afternoon, after it had had severe snow disruption in the morning and many flights were still being cancelled. Not a dicky bird about it. No fast publishing capability. No information.
On Weds 23rd I tried to get to London by train. Southeastern’s call centre said trains were running. A timed IVR message at 12.30pm announced normal services resumed on all routes. Its screens announced trains. The website showed trains. No trains ran from 8 till 2pm whilst I was there. I went back at 6.30pm. The signs said no trains. The guy on the end of the platform message button said there were no trains. One came in and I went to London.
What becomes useful is the ability to see reality with your own eyes. I followed the various web snow forecasts on the 18th, 19th and 20th closely. Kent to Gatwick, central London and Gatwick again, with a partially closed A21. The forecasts were pretty random. The Highways site had a bit of data, but that didn’t stack up with what friends were saying about blocks and queues. What was brilliant was the ability to see the live video feeds at various parts of the road network. It might be saying snowing on the website but if the camera couldn’t see it, it wasn’t snowing. The Gatwick site has a live arrivals and departures board which if true, is pretty close to seeing reality. However the rail equivalents of live boards doesn’t work. I went for an 1150 train today showing “on time” on the site. It wasn’t. No trains had run for 3 hours they said and they weren’t sure when the next one would run. Shambles. It’s no wonder Southeastern cant run a service most days – it probably can’t tell its drivers where to be and when.
Best I go and update our news page then….
