AMTRAK ends satisfaction guarantee
 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amtrak is ending the ``satisfaction guarantee'' program it introduced two years ago as a marketing maneuver to lure and keep passengers.

The passenger railroad never met its goal of holding reimbursement requests to one per 1,000 passengers. full story here

This doesn't sound too good to me!

I collected about $250 in "free" travel due to the service guarantee, and recently cashed in the remaining certificates.

It was a good program for me.

Perhaps a good program for travelers, but a bad one for Amtrak. With exceptional circumstances refunds will still exist, but no longer will it be such a common occurance. I think this is a step in the right direction for our national railroad.

Flyerbeek

I disagree.

This program provided a useful method of obtaining quality control feedback from customers (formerly guests), and discontinuing such will close off a useful venue for obtaining information.

Due to various quality control problems (such as water leaking from the ceiling during a rainstorm onto my seat!) I've, alas, collected some of these certificates.

Now, instead of grumbling to Amtrak, some passengers will just grumble to others-- a form of negative advertising. At least with the Satisfaction Program, there was a tangible way for Amtrak to make amends.

Hotels such as Sheraton have jumped aboard rolling out a Satisfaction program which Amtrak has now abandoned. Other hotels such as Hampton Inn has had such a program for years.

This is a step backwards.






[This message has been edited by Globehopper (edited 11-02-2002).]

I was amazed Amtrak even begun a Customer Satisfaction program. The USA railroads have never been known for customer service. They far prefer to transport boxes, crates, tank cars etc.

MisterNice

I am surprised at this as I just received a $25 "Gift Certificate" to use for any and all Amtrak travel. I must buy my ticket at the station though and hand in the paper certificate. I think this may be becuase I travelled so much in premium class on them that they though they would give me some money back?

I would rather have Select status, as I just missed the minimum.

The last time I took the Coast Starlight, I recall talking to a couple whose entire round-trip Deluxe sleeper fare was comped for by Amtrak (they still had to pay the basic coach fare). He had complained after his last trip, in which the Zephyr arrived into OAK about 10 hrs late (mostly due to snow in the Rockies and Sierra).

Another couple I was talking to mentioned how Amtrak always ensured they made their connections between trains. In one case they were connecting between the Zeph and the Coast Starlight, and they pulled the passengers off at Sacramento and chased the CS through most of N. California in a motorcoach.

At any rate, I got the impression that Amtrak was really serious about customer satisfaction.

You are joking, right?

MisterNice

I too have taken them up on the guarantee, when they arrived SEA-LAX 4+ hours late and I missed a connecting flight. I was impressed by their customer service.

Amtrak is in this weird position. Basically nothing but the Northeast makes any money for them, and some of their trains in the west are consistently late to the point where I now ignore the "arrival time". I've dealt with the Coast Starlight 4-5 times (mostly on the receiving end of picking up passengers) and it was always 2-11 hours late. That's a real spread!

So they have an inconsistent product and their customer service tries to make the best of it, but it is a losing battle. And so they lose more money cleaning up after their mess.

Now that I live on the East coast, I try to take Amtrak, but their pricing structure is broken. It just doesn't make sense for me (a healthy guy without airplane phobia) to pay (often significantly) MORE for slower less frequent service when it is on my dime (or that of my company). Even when I amtrak.com on my vacations, I have never found it to be a good deal unless I'm going for the scenery and the train ride, and that only happened once. Most of my vacations are not Paul Theroux copies! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif