TheTrainline.com - FAIL

If you haven't got the time to read the post that follows, I'll encapsulate it in one paragraph: Do not offer your customers a product or service if you cannot fulfil their expectations. It's really that simple. If you can offer something that is impressive, then offer it. If you can't, then don't. Your brand will suffer because of it.

Now, on with the fun eh?

As I have previously allowed thetrainline.com permission to email me, this email popped into my inbox last week:

  
(In hindsight I don't know why I've blurred out the code - it's useless.)

So that's £5 off a journey. I'm planning to pop up to the North East and see family in April so I thought that'd be good. I'll book cheap tickets and get a further fiver off. That'll leave me with a reasonably priced train ticket. Last time I travelled up North I booked direct through National Express and the journey was great. However, if a 3rd party can offer me a discount and a quicker booking system then I'll book through them.

 
(Note the green? Green usually means 'go' or 'yes' or some other positive indicator doesn't it?)

So I popped in my preferred trains. As there are radio buttons I can press I stupidly presumed this meant I could get a seat on those trains for that price. Erm... nope:

 
(Thanks for the helpful note, thetrainline.com. I'm glad you've cleared up the problem using language us humans understand. It's one of those pesky E00328 problems. I was just chatting about them to a friend at the weekend.)

So I've been given the option to book a seat, then been told that seat isn't available any more. Why offer me the seat in the first place? I know technologically live booking is possible, so why don't you use it? After going back several times and trying different trains at the same price, the same screen kept on returning to the error page so I thought I'd give them a call and speak to a human, explain my problem and hopefully get the offer I had been promised in the email. I rang the number on the screen above, and what did I get? A recorded message saying the number wasn't being used any more. I quickly scribbled down the new number and then thought I'd go on to the Contact Us section to make sure the number I'd been given was the same one I'd just been given:

 
(Hmmmm. That's the same number I've just rang and they told me it's not being used any more.)

The same number as before. Oh, and it's an 0870 number. They charge me for that. So they're charging me to hear that they have changed their number and then I have to dial another number which is 0870 411 11 11. So they'll charge me for that too. Thanks!

When I get through to speak to someone, I explain that I have a £5 voucher, but the seats that are showing as available aren't available. So can you please tell me which trains are £30 each way with similar times, and can I book them through you using the voucher please? No. I can only get the £5 offer if booked online. Thanks very much for the non-help on the call I've just paid for.

So, as I've now wasted a decent amount of my time, I go back onto the site, look up the next price band and try to book that. I get to the payment page (the email with the offer says "The £5 discount will be applied on the payment screen") and there's no box for the offer code. I can only use the offer if I click through on the email. (How hard is it to have a code box on the payment screen? Not difficult - I've seen it elsewhere as I'm sure you have.)

So I go back again to the email, click the offer and go through the process again (probably the 4th or 5th time) and select my trains with the more expensive seats. It all goes swimmingly until I get to the payment page:

   
(Oooh! They didn't mention this in the original email.)

At this point I closed down my browser and deleted the £5 off email. The process and the offer simply do not give me enough benefits in order to keep on persevering.

So they promised me this:

• £5 off my rail tickets.
• Trains for £30 each way.
• "Did you know we've made a few changes to our site and developed some handy money saving tools to help you find cheap tickets even faster?"

Whereas this is what really happened:

• £5 off your rail tickets. But by the way, we charge £2.50 to use your credit card and £1 to use our website.
• Trains for £30 each way. That I can't book. They must just like teasing people.
• "Did you know you're actually going to spend the next half hour before realising that actually it's going to take much longer than just ringing up National Express direct, we'll charge you for calling us even though we're no help at all and the £5 off in reality is only £1.50 when you've taken our charges off."

You see, thetrainline.com, it's just taken me much much longer to write this post than it has to arrange alternative transport for my trip. That's because I'm a human being. I don't like being let down. I wouldn't like it if a friend of mine dropped me an email, offered me something which I realised later (after wasting my time and my money) didn't exist. It's lying. Intentional or not, it means I'm not going to trust that friend again for a long time. I gave you the opportunity to engage with me when I ticked a little box allowing you to send me information. You've let me down after promising me something you couldn't deliver. For that reason I'm letting others know that you waste the time of people that want to give you money, and that there is no benefit whatsoever in booking tickets through you opposed to directly through National Express.

You've offered me convenience, but not delivered. You've not offered me any extra benefits compared to National Express. So, thetrainline.com, what's the point of using you? If there's no point in using you, what's the point in you being here?

Comments

[Andrea]

See, it took you half an hour and you were probably VERY, VERY patient with this. I'd have thought it's a nice idea as I go to Birmingham regularly and it costs about £25 for offpeak returns (student perks) so to be a cheapo till the end, £5 more off is a sweet deal. I've also tried The Train Line a while ago when I wanted to book a to London for me and a friend and we wanted them on the same train. It just wouldn't let us book 2 tickets simultaneously so we both had to go through the process separately. What the heck, if the tickets were available, did we need that much hassle?

I don't think anyone has ever grasped online ticket booking as they should have, CrossCountry pulled the same stunt a while back but it's annoying as they're the only operator on that route. So I try to save myself some grey matter and just visit nationalrail.co.uk in advance and then pay a visit to the train station. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish.

[Graeme Davidson]

And because it was £5 off for "your next train ticket" over £20 then really the £5 off should be applied to both tickets. Thus, £10 off.
The Trainline really has to wake up.

[g1smd]

At least you only wasted half an hour. :-(

A few weeks back, I wasted several hours trying to book a National Express coach to London and the return journey back home for 10 days later. I had been past the coach station earlier in the day and could have just walked in and paid for it there - at twice the online price. When online it was late on Sunday evening, and the offices had long since closed.

At first, I couldn't get beyond 'stage 2' of the booking process as it would not connect to the secure server after choosing a journey. Then I tried a different machine, and the CSS was on the fritz and the 'next' button would not appear. What was even more galling was that each time I tried again, the price of each leg of the journey went up by a quid because the last few remaining seats were being 'held' for me under transactions I could not re-access. I then went back to the original machine and wiped all the cookies and history and tried again.

I got a bit more luck, but only for a couple of minutes. I could see all the screens and buttons OK, and it connected to the secure server just fine. However, now, it rejected my card details every time. Same card I have always used. Same journey pattern. Same personal details.

I phoned the bank (yeah, 0870, again) and they told me that National Express hadn't even asked them for verification, so it was their system at fault.

I tried a few more times, each time the ticket price going up again and was about to give up when I remembered something that happened last time I booked a ticket a couple of months ago.

Back then, the payments screen had a drop down for the card issue number. My card was issue twenty-something but the drop down list listed only 1 to 9 (single digits) and 01 to 09 (double digit, leading zero) and 10. There was nothing for 11 onwards. I think that back then I just left the box blank and it all worked.

This time, the issue number box was a simple type-in form field (no drop-down list in sight), and it appeared that you could type in anything you wanted. I had been filling that box in, and each time the card was rejected. I now took a gamble and completely omitted the issue number, and finally it all worked - except that it took ages for the 'print ticket' screen to appear.

I ended up printing the ticket later in the evening from the email they sent, as (yeah, you guessed it), the printer decided at that moment to have an empty ink cartridge.

Does all this technology really save time? Whose time?

[Rebecca]

Hi Mark
I'm Rebecca and I'm in the Press Office at thetrainline.com. I've read your tweet and post and I am sorry your experience with us wasn't a smooth process. We are looking into the problems you encountered and our Customer Relations department will respond to you by email in the next 24-48 hours.
Kind regards
Rebecca

[graeme]

Great rant! - there are so many times I wanted to write this (about the Trainline and the train companies themselves) and haven't got round to it. Wonder if the press office people will be contacting all your annoyed commenters too? If not, we know just to tweet about it next time

[Steve]

Nice work. Chimes with my experience absolutely. It's easy to see why they bought Q-jump (which had a much better interface) and closed it down. Personally the best rail ticket website is the one GNER developed and which was transferred to National Express East Coast whan they took over: tinyurl.com/nxtrain

[ajw]

check out the new 'improved' Trainline.com website.

You can't print your Train Journey breakdown, and you can't compare different train times side-by-side like you used to be able to do before it went all AJAXy (used to be able to open up different journeys in adjacent browser tabs, then print off your chosen journey).

Now the journey opens up in a javascript window which doesn't have a print button.

AJAX is the way to go, but not like this. Poor.

Have just found an article from 2008 talking up their approach to usability, too! Wouldn't be surprised if their conversion rates have plummeted since these 'improvements'.

[Paul]

I got in a huff about a far subtler issue with thetrainline.com two years ago, ie around the date of this article. Read on: http://these-are-testing-times.blogspot.com/2009/01/next-train-to-depart-from-platform-1.html

I also got a quick, amd admittedly unexpected, reply from them as well.