West Midland Railway Customer Relations

[greengreyblue]

I’m awaiting a refund from WMR but it’s been weeks since they asked for my bank details. I chased it today and was told a message would be passed on. When I asked what had happened and when could I expect the refund , the response was just repeated. ‘ I’ll pass it on.’ I had sat in a queue for 20 mins to get this response and the agent was not convincing. I asked to speak to someone else and was told there is nobody else to speak to. I used to work in Customer Services and we all know there is always someone supervising. I said I was happy to wait and was told ‘ if you don’t hang up, I will’
I was so shocked. He did end the call. At no point was I rude. Is this the state of customer service these days? I rang back hoping to get someone else and got the same person. I asked for their names and was told they didn’t have to tell me that. All of this was delivered in a CBA voice. I can find no other means of contacting WMR. I am hoping the refund comes but AIBU to expect better service than this?

The person sounds a bit rubbish.
Could always make a complaint about the person's attitude

Yeah I am going to. Calls are recorded for training purposes apparently! 🙄

He can't be expected to sit there in silence, blocking the line for other customers, if no one is available for you to speak to. You say there is 'always someone supervising' but if that person is already on a call with someone like you who has asked to speak to them, the agent has no idea whether that call will last 5 minutes or 2 hours.

No but if I had a customer on the phone who insisted on waiting and there was really no one available I wouldn't say I'll hang up if you don't. I would explain everyone's in a meeting for example. I don't know how long it will be to make you aware. Are you sure you want to hold. Then it's the customer's choice. And I'd keep going back after a while to say they're not out of the meeting are you sure you still want hold. Eventually though customer relents

So while you are pointlessly keeping the customer on the line, other customers are in the call queue and abandoning their calls, and you have achieved absolutely nothing with the original customer.

I'm confident that my managers are happy with that way rather saying the situation mentioned in the OP

But it's rare everyone is a meeting anyway. Often you find SOMEONE (there might be just one senior available) and can sort it that way anyway

I wouldn't advocate it.

Offer a call back
Repeat offer and reassure them the call back will happen.
Explain politely that you can't allow the customer to remain on the line indefinitely, reassure them once more that they will get a call back, and end the call.

Thanks but my managers haven't given any bad feedback on how I do my calls lol

West Midland trains CEO email address if you want to complain OP:

[email protected]

The thing is , the agent was not at all convincing. I felt I was being fobbed off. If they had said their boss was in a call but I’ll get them to call you or anything that was helpful, I would have accepted that. It was the tone and indifference that was so crap. He said very little, just monotone repetitive statements.

Yes I can imagine the kind of thing

I rang back and got the same person! But I could hear people in the office so it wasn’t a wfh situation. Thanks for CEO details.

I had someone talk to me online, then ring, rude both times and I could not help her... and she rang a second time, rude.. then a third time and hung up on hearing me.

She could not accept that there was just ME answering the chat/phone. No one else and had I been in an office, there still wouldn't have been as we would have been just using a single desk in an office space, the other people around me would have been nothing to do with the people I work for!

Not everything is run from a huge call centre, and if you're ringing back and getting the same person each time it is likely that they are the only person available.

Yes but I wasn’t rude , the agent was. I asked if he was the only agent and he said no. He said nobody would tell me any different. The thing was he wouldn’t answer any questions. So if he can’t then he should put me on to someone who can.

But if there genuinely is no one there to ask as the only ones there are all the same level as him... whats the point.

I agree there was no need to be rude, but the likelyhood is, either there was no one there to ask who could offer another answer OR he's been told that his direct manager will not be taking calls, don't pass them on, and he has no choice but to do as he's told.

You can tell when someone is genuine and if he explained it in those terms it would be different. He either was being rude or has an extremely disinterested and sarcastic voice. To not even try to explain the process, how long it normally takes, look on the system for me, go and chat to the person dealing with my cases etc. We respond to how we feel we are being dealt with. This a week a not customer service. If he had done all that I wouldn’t have asked to speak to his supervisor.

Interestingly, when you phone their number you go through to an Indian call centre where the agents are super polite. They then redirect you to Birmingham where the service and tone falls off a cliff. 😂

I was waiting for a refund once from Avanti and it eventually turned out the delay was caused by my bank (credit card issuer). Can't remember why, but that might be worth checking, maybe, OP.

Yeah that’s a possibility but as he wouldn’t look into it, I am none the wiser That was my query, can you see what the delay is?

The last time I worked within any sort of call handling system was the 90s but even then you could put a caller on hold until the person they needed was free, and you answered other calls. Surely there's a much more hi-tech way of doing it now, you don't just manage one at a time? Ending the call sounds like the way they manage enquiries they don't want to deal with rather than there's only one phone line available that they can't block.

Even in the absence of a supervisor they should have offered a way to get you an answer at a later point, sounds very poor.

I was suggesting to ring the bank/credit card issuer, as that turned out to be where my issue was. I had contacted Avanti several times and they had always said, correctly as it turned out, that they had authorised the refund and didn't know why I hadn't got it.

The refund had t been issued by WMR so no point ringing bank

Still no refund! Just tried number again and this time selected the option ‘ leave feedback’ and the same guy answered the phone! So it seems WMR customer relations has one useless member of staff.

Is it worth contacting them via social media, if that's possible?