- Trains on the Brain

Creating social media buzz about rail travel: a tall order or what?

When surfing the twittosphere the other day I came across this post about the trainspotter wanted job. This blogger works in the UK rail industry and makes some very interesting points. He argues that the successful applicant will have their work cut out for them as train customers don’t want ‘engagement’ via social media or what have you, they just want value for money and a reliable service. Things which since the lamentable privatisation of our national rail service have been all too sadly lacking.

I suppose many people using trains don’t really do so out of choice or for leisure, but simply to convey them to and from work with (hopefully) the least hassle possible. Anyone who commutes on trains will inevitably get frustrated with the service’s delays and disruptions, plus all the minor annoyances that go along with it – the recent news from Passenger Focus about users’ complaints against ticketing machines to springs to mind.

You can just imagine the sort of feedback the trainspotter will get as they canvass opinion from passengers grinding their teeth on the platform after their rush hour commuter service has just been cancelled for the third time this month. It’s definitely not a job for the thin-skinned then, but still a good opportunity I think for someone maybe a year or two out of uni who wants to make a name for themselves in the industry and fancies giving London life a whirl.

This blogger also ‘outs’ the mysterious company behind the job: SilverRail Technologies, a relatively recent start-up whose founders have worked with US rail operator Amtrak. They have recently come out of hiding with ambitious plans for a $9 million global ticketing project, will be interesting to see how their plans pan out. Their website is dotted with bullish gobbets about the rise of rail travel, the dent which Eurostar has made into the London-Paris air route etc, but are they overstating the case, is there enough demand out there yet from customers to ditch planes for trains?

How will their offering sit alongside existing companies like www.thetrainline.com with their bizarre system of two single tickets nearly always being cheaper and the savings dedicated skinflints can exploit by buying separate tickets for the component parts of their journeys?

What do you think? Can you really harness social media to whip up genuine interaction and good vibes from train travellers in the UK? If you’re applying for the job yourself, prep for your interview here and tell us all how you plan to turn the titanic tide of cynicism!

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I’ve lived in London in the 80s and must admit the state of rail travel then was seriously lamentable. On my recent occassional visits in the UK, I’ve used trains because I couldn’t be bothered to rent a car. I must say, things have changed. There are new rolling stock now, more modernised than back in the 80s. I suppose due to privatisation. I think social media should be harnessed to encourage more people to use trains. In France, where I now live, and in Germany, my homeland, trains are my preferred mode of travel for distances that do not go for more than 6 hours. The UK should learn from France and Germany, I think.

Michael Schuermann on July 22nd, 2010 at 8:57 pm

[...] recruitment drive (not dissimilar to that of trainspotterswanted) employs some fairly canny viral techniques but is also refreshingly straight-no-chaser. They [...]

Should I backtrack for Flightster? « he thought of trains on July 25th, 2010 at 1:29 pm

Hi Michael, you have a point there. I think our transport – like our food – is gradually improving, but there’s no denying that hard-nosed, cost-cutting measures by various governments have slashed away at useful services.

Of course, us Brits have a long way to go before we can compete with continental Europe when it comes to quality, high speed rail.

Thanks for commenting.
Jools

joolsstone on July 25th, 2010 at 9:01 pm

Hey Julian thanks for directing me over to your lovely blog. Here’s a link to my Trainspotter Wanted page: http://www.trainspotterwanted.co.uk/sophie-c-bristol/ And thank you for the comment you left! I agree with Michael, we could learn from France and Germany, particularly the latter. People get annoyed when trains are more than one minute late in Germany.

joolsstone on July 26th, 2010 at 2:03 pm

Don’t get me started on the state of our public transport system, but, I don’t see why social media wouldn’t work – if I was the East coast line operator for example, you could have someone monitoring social media networks to see what people are saying about your service, and then interact with those people to tell them you’ve noticed they have had a problem and it will be investigated.

The thing then – you would have to make sure that it is investigated, and dealt with.

The problem with many travel companies is that they have joined the likes of Facebook and Twitter because it’s the thing that everyone is talking about. Take Jet2, they completely ignored tweets when I was stranded in Holland in May, yet, they said if you had questions, to ask.

In other words you can’t just jump into social media – if you aren’t going to interact with people, deal with customer complaints, then you might as well forget it.

Darren on July 27th, 2010 at 6:10 am

Thanks for commenting Darren, appreciate it!

Yes, as you say the connect between the service side and the comms side will be the vital thing. It’s going to be a ‘reputation management’ baptism of fire isn’t it.
Jools

flights rhodes on August 18th, 2010 at 11:56 pm

[...] of financial backing, so we can expect big things from it. These are also the people who ran the Trainspotter Wanted job competition for a social media person. Their new whizz in this regard is Sophie Collard who takes [...]