30-08-2006, 09:14 | #1 | |
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customer service my ar5e
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http://www.orelse.eu/irishrail.html |
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30-08-2006, 13:05 | #2 |
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Tickets must be sent to the card holders address and the card holder must be a named passenger for each leg of the journey. Thats standard practice, try to buy something online. That is not grounds for complaint
Direct Kerry Waterford is a complex journey and does require some thought I'd acccept the delay to accertain correct information and to be honest its a 3 or 4 change 7+ hour nightmare, much simpler get bus to Limerick and onwards to Waterford If your credit card has been refused and you want the tickets sent to multiple addresses in different names, that would have my fraud alarm going off 22 calls in 2 hours thats obsessive and counter productive, leave message and give a reasonable chance for people to get back in touch bearing in mind before calling you back they need to look at your booking. I used to work in a customer service role and the bulk of problems I was faced with where people not understanding what was going on, once someone took the time to explain clearly the way of things most problems where resolved. Service is ****e at the best of times and it is clear in this case that if the IE staff had explained things correctly we would not be reading this complaint Last edited by Mark Gleeson : 30-08-2006 at 13:09. |
30-08-2006, 13:23 | #3 | ||
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3 To complete your booking, please provide your personal information To receive your tickets by post free of charge, please indicate your address below. Send the tickets to my address Send the tickets to another person or address Addressee: Quote:
and 45.50 euros single. |
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30-08-2006, 13:46 | #4 | |
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30-08-2006, 14:12 | #5 |
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Its in the terms of sale that for online sales the card holder must travel, phone bookings you might be able to get round it.
We only ship to the card holders address is exteremly common Tralee Waterford on a Sunday is great fun |
30-08-2006, 14:15 | #6 |
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If you need the card then why is there a problem with virtual tickets?
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30-08-2006, 14:33 | #7 |
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But if there is more than one person travelling on the same booking each passenger could be seated in different coaches, each will need a ticket
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30-08-2006, 14:53 | #8 | |
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I've never travelled with people where we were all in different carraiges. If you are getting food etc. I'm sure the inspector can walk you back to your seat. I am yet to hear a single convincing argument for this or any of IEs other inabilities. |
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30-08-2006, 15:30 | #9 |
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If you let the system select seats automatically (which is much faster) there is no guarantee you will be seated together and it says that clearly, it starts one side of the coach and once it fills it starts on the second side
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30-08-2006, 16:00 | #10 | |
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The only reason virtual ticketing can not work is because IE are useless. Just because their IT services are a joke, it doesn't mean the inspector can't understand functions like "The guy in 54A has the credit card." That can then be confirmed by the guy in 54A. As I have said countless times on this forum, IEs ineptitude is the only thing preventing simple things for working. |
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30-08-2006, 16:10 | #11 |
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If there aren't 4 seats together left you will be scattered thats life its not software, its physically impossible.it will issue the lowest numbered seats possible after C72 next seat is D01
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30-08-2006, 16:43 | #12 | |
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They could even be really flash and use some fancy sorting algorithms to keep people close together, perhaps only allow X seats to be booked on the train that will be in certain carriages to prevent this. If one person books a seat alone, they sit where there are 3 seats taken. If only there were a multitude of sorting methods to do things like this, oh wait there are. One of the key parts of software development is problem solving, sadly no one told IEs blind donkey developer that they may have to deal with situations where the hard bit is done for them. Maybe one day IE will be able to come up with ideas that took me 2 minutes to think of that will benefit customers. |
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31-08-2006, 12:21 | #13 | |
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Passenger can select any seat they want
Human nature is they will select a seat where the surrounding seats are not taken Once a passenger has booked you cant move there seat since they already have been confirmed with a seat number and issued a ticket Virtual tickets are not a IT problem its how its handled on the train, the existing email receipt has a unique serial number thus the problem is how to authenticate the ticket on the train On train computer already has this unique serial number thus the challenge becomes how to cope with 2 people with the same number i.e the chancer at which point some kind of ID would be required, and the credit card doesn't cut it what if the ticket is bought for someone else I reread the complaint and find this line particulary interesting Quote:
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31-08-2006, 12:27 | #14 |
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Bus Eireann manage just fine with a five digit code that is tied to a route and date. I presume that if the code is entered twice on the same bus (and trip) that it will be rejected. I also presume that if someone else tries to use the same code later on in the day, your credit card will be charged for a second ticket.
Likewise, Ticketmaster fastTickets work on the principle that if someone else has your ticket/barcode, the second person trying to gain entry is refused. GAA (with Ticketmaster fastTicket) give all their ticket sellers PDAs with a custom app that (I presume) checks the barcode against a list of valid tickets. Since each ticket is seated, the first person who gets to their seat enjoys the match. It's not rocket science, IR just find it hard to think like customers. If one online transaction buys tickets for four people, then the first four people with the right code are presumed to have valid tickets and anyone else is out of luck. Last edited by markpb : 31-08-2006 at 12:32. |
31-08-2006, 12:37 | #15 | |
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Bus Eireann's system is just like the existing Irish Rail system you present a code manually in the case of Bus Eireann or by using your Credit Card for Irish Rail (or code at booking office window), a ticket is then issued for the entire journey on that booking. Once the bus driver confirms the code a normal wayfayer style ticket is issued
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31-08-2006, 13:24 | #16 | |
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As I keep saying. The only reason such a system does not exist is IE have no desire to implement one. IE could even implement a system on a first come first served basis, if the window seats are all gone and four people book, give them isle seats together. I guarentee I could come up with an efficient system for this with a bit of thought. You can not please everyone at all times, the current system certainly wont (from your own post the train can fill up). Now, IE do not have virtual ticketing implemented as they are awful and have no desire to do so. There is no reason or obsticle that can not be overcome for this other than they do not want to or they are too bad a company to care what their passengers think, I'd be surprised if they care about window seats or not. If IE gave a toss about passengers they wouldn't allow their CS staff to be so rude and lazy. For (hopefully) the last time, the current system poses little benefit over a virtual ticketing system other than it was easier to implement for the blind donkey. If only they had a first year student do it, it could have been so much better. |
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31-08-2006, 15:29 | #17 |
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This really is very simple. User prints ticket with barcode, ticket checker scans barcode, off it goes to back end system, message back confirming ticket is ok.
Also, I thought we weren't going to have a situation where 100% of the train would be bookings only? Therefore it shouldn't be a problem having people with prior bookings seated together?? |
31-08-2006, 15:53 | #18 | ||
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31-08-2006, 16:10 | #19 |
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I still say the only reason it is not done it due to IE. Be it staff, management the blind donkey or all three. It is still because IE are a bad backward company.
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31-08-2006, 16:33 | #20 | |
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if this is the case then it certainly was a blind donkey that specified this system ( not the programmer/designer who only do what the customer wants, Irish rail in this case) Why not simply let a customer book any seat on the train that is not already booked and limit the number of bookings taken for that service. Can the system redesignate seats at stations further down the line i.e man books seat G31 from dublin to say thurles can this seat be then reassigned to a person who booked from thurles to cork or better still become available to non booked customers??? Last edited by colmoc : 01-09-2006 at 08:35. |
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