South West Trains celebrates a successful customer service week

Last week marked the internationally recognised National Customer Service Week, and for the third consecutive year, South West Trains used the week as an opportunity to launch a range of initiatives to improve the service for passengers.

This year, over a hundred people from the management team volunteered to shadow front-line staff and helped with duties ranging from helping with passenger requests, ticket information, station cleaning, train presentation and train dispatch. Some of the week’s achievements included:

• Directors, including Managing Director Andy Pitt, and senior managers, volunteered to work alongside local cleaning teams. Their duties included collecting papers, food and drinks containers, cleaning toilet facilities and emptying bins. At Waterloo, senior management staff also assisted in the preparation of trains before dispatch.
• Actions at stations included a thorough clean at Isleworth (cleaning the embankment and car park as well as the station itself), Woking, Guildford, Basingstoke, Southampton Central and Weymouth. Volunteering managers picked up litter, cleaned the station toilets and removed graffiti.  
• Passengers were provided with extra assistance in buying their tickets; this included local area managers helping at Kingston, Woking, Guildford, Basingstoke and stations in the Portsmouth area.
• Extra support for the on-board staff: the management team assisted the on-train teams in responding to passenger enquiries on trains across the network.

Volunteers from the South West Trains’ senior management team spent time listening to passengers’ views and provided additional assistance wherever possible.

South West Trains’ team of station staff were also actively involved in all aspects of this initiative, sharing their own experiences with senior staff so that long-term improvements in customer service can be made. As part of this, passengers have been invited to nominate those staff who have gone the extra mile, by going to South West Trains’ website and entering the member of staff’s name. The winner will be treated to shopping vouchers and a trip on Eurostar.

South West Trains has been commended for its high quality of customer service in the National Passenger Survey and the Customer Service Week presents an opportunity to raise the bar even higher. The survey, carried out in spring 2010, shows that 85% of passengers are satisfied with their journey. Passenger satisfaction at South West Trains is also above the national average of 83% and also higher than the London and South East average of 82%.

Andy Pitt, Managing Director for South West Trains, who joined the team of volunteers helping to clean trains at Waterloo station, said: “South West Trains has been celebrating Customer Service Week since 2007, and it is an essential part of our customer service culture. We used the week to engage with our passengers and encouraged them to nominate their favourite member of staff. The week also helped us to raise the awareness of the importance of customer service and come up with some new ideas to improve our service even further”.
 
Andrew Fairbank, Head of Train Service Delivery for South West Trains, who also helped out during National Customer Service Week: “Customer Service Week is a great opportunity to come out and support our front line staff in everything they do. This always proves popular as everyone gets refreshed on their service skills, and our people get a chance to work side by side with people who normally manage them. Everybody learns from it.”

Customer Service Week is celebrated by companies around the globe who want to recognise the important role played by customer service in their organisation.