Dear Stena Line,
I want to start by thanking you for several good foot passenger overnight journeys from Belfast to Birkenhead. Its a brilliantly timed and well run service with lovely staff throughout. Only on my last journey, Belfast-Birkenhead with SailRail ticket to London in September, did I find a few reasons that led me write to you to suggest a few improvements:
Waiting Room and boarding in Belfast
It seems your service is a victim of its own success : The waiting room was horribly overcrowded, and no one was giving clear information about when boarding would start or how that would work. I seem to remember that on quieter crossings from Birkenhead, staff offer to take bags from you. In Belfast we had to struggle around narrow areas and get them loaded. The bus could not take everyone on board at once of course this is fine, but you could organize this in advance rather than leaving us standing outside with children at night. Finally, parking is a big problem, as I''m sure you know. And there is very little public transport provision from Belfast. A well timed bus provided by you from Belfast centre might help alleviate the parking problem and improve this great service further.
Providing a dependable sailrail connection in Birkenhead
When we got to Birkenhead, we were keen to get on the bus off the boat in order to get to the station on time to continue our journey. We were saddened to hear that the bus to the station is the same bus as the one used to shuttle people off the ship, and that it would need to make more trips to the ship before being free to take people to the station. So we walked. I know the connection times for getting to Birkenhead station printed on the eticket are probably only meant as a guide, but they are completely unrealistic if this is how you routinely deal with large numbers of foot passengers. We had a connecting train in London and would have planned differently if we had known to expect such a delay.
eXtra 'points' for rail journey tickets
Why are tickets with a rail ticket not eligible for points, not even for the cost of the sailing component?
Again, please accept my thanks for this service and putting in so much effort for this small but growing market segment of foot/rail passengers.
Best Regards,
Matthew
And here was the response:
Dear Matthew,
Thank you for taking the time to contact Stena Line.
Stena Line openly welcome and appreciate feedback and once received is used to review our products and services in order to improve our service for our wide range of customers.
Here at Stena Line, we are committed to providing the highest standards of service to all our customers so therefore I would like to assure you that your comments have been forwarded to the Route Management Team. Not only will this ensure that your comments have been heard but it will also provide Stena Line with the opportunity to learn from your comments with a view to improving our service to all our customers.
Once again, I would like to thank you for your comments and time and we look forward to welcoming you on board again soon.
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