Wasting money AND giving wretched service: East Midlands Trains

Answering complaints and enquiries by email is cheaper than answering phone enquiries, if you structure the enquiry/complaint form properly. An agent responding to emails can be loaded close to 100%, with no gaps waiting for calls. The customer has been obliged to compose their thoughts in their own time, rather than doing so whilst the agent listens.

So, how stupid is it for a hard-up organisation to encourage enquiries to be made by phone rather than email?

This is what you get when you fill in an online complaint to East Midlands Trains:

Thank you for getting in touch. Although we aim to respond in 5 working days, you will definitely receive a full response within 20 working days.

20 working days - that is FOUR WEEKS. For a train company, whose enquirers are fairly likely to be asking about something that won't wait four weeks. (In my case, I wanted to know about Engineering Works four weeks ahead, because their online information wasn't working).

They realise the problem, so they add:
In the meantime, if you have any urgent questions or concerns, please call us on 08457 125 678 (option 5, then 3) and we'll be happy to help

So - having invited you to fill in a form, they then acknowledge that this may well not be suitable for your needs, and suggest another approach. Not an alternative (there is no way to retract the enquiry/complaint you have made online) but AS WELL.

So an organisation struggling to deliver competent Customer Service (and that is being kind) not only encourages customers to contact them using a more resource-intensive route, but duplicates work for itself in the process.

Sheer Genius.

Postscript:

I did phone for the information, and suggested to their staff member that they could save themselves work if they warned of their "20-working-day" response standard before inviting online contact. He clearly wasn't programmed to handle such a suggestion, skipping to the next prompt in his script "What is the problem you need help with?". Thick, or rude - I couldn't work out which.