A customer on my train spent 50 minutes this morning arguing with the guard. The guard’s credit card machine had taken his transaction twice according to the receipts. The guard “knew” it hadn’t because it made this error before.
The customer wanted confirmation that it hadn’t taken his money twice. The guard couldn’t do that but asked the customer to write in. Naturally the customer did not want to waste his time when it wasn’t his fault. Both were locked in an impasse.
The supervisor was called by phone. The conversation was not understood by the supervisor. Several times the customer asked the supervisor not to talk over him. He eventually told him (”Jim”) that he did not believe that Jim “understood what I’m saying” since he hadn’t listened to him.
My point isn’t better training for the ticket man or the supervisor. It’s two questions:
Why didn’t the machine get fixed when the conductor knew it was broken?
How much time was wasted and how much damage done to SouthEastern’s brand?
