Rude Stagecoach manager...who to complain to?

vyle

Every day for the past week or so, it's taken over an hour to get home from work on the busses, for myself and my partner. The busses that should be every 10 minutes are one every 45 minutes or so.

I was off work today, but my partner left work at 4:30 and waited for a bus...and waited.

Eventually a bus turned up, the driver got out and wandered off.

Half an hour later, no driver for the bus and no other busses had arrived, either.

Finally, the city manager appeared and my partner asked him where the other busses were, and why there were no drivers, because it's a very common occurence in cambridge for there to be no replacement drivers.

Basically, the big cheese of the city's bus infrastructure was there, and so my partner asked why the service is so bad.

The manager's response?

"Be quiet."

My partner was pretty livid when he got home, because we have each paid over £500 this year alone for a terrible bus service. Granted, the road system and generally crud drivers contribute to the problem and the city manager must be under a lot of pressure, but there is no excuse for speaking to customers like that. I know that if I spoke to a customer like that at work I'd face disciplinary, or be fired.

So, any idea who to complain to and how to go about it?

fudgeukraine

Are you wanting to complain about the bad service, or being told to 'be quiet'? pretty petty if it's the later

DCFC79

Has anyone spoken to the MP for your area as surely the bus service is something which should be tackled as people use it,

Kavanne

fudgeukraine wrote: »

Are you wanting to complain about the bad service, or being told to 'be quiet'? pretty petty if it's the later

A senior manager telling a customer to 'be quiet' when they try to complain? Awful. Should never happen. Not petty at all.

vyle

fudgeukraine wrote: »

Are you wanting to complain about the bad service, or being told to 'be quiet'? pretty petty if it's the later

So if you received poor service in a shop, and made a complaint and their response was to tell you to basically !!!! off, would you be fine with that?

JHB_2

I can understand your partner being angry (what on earth has happened to customer service nowadays) and certainly not petty!

I have had a couple of instances in recent times where I have received intolerable rudeness. What I have done is a google search to find the person who is very top of the tree in that organisation and emailed them. In one instance, I rang the appropriate office to ask for the email address, which was given quite readily.

It's amazing how you get a response when it's gone to the top and filtered down.
Give it a go. If we put up with rubbish, standards will never improve.

hamstercheeks_2

write to brian soutar in perth
he;s the owner
google it for address

Brooker_Dave

vyle wrote: »

So, any idea who to complain to and how to go about it?

Be quiet...........

Pollycat

We have a 10 minute bus service in our area but we are at the end of the route on a loop and we found that quite often, when traffic was obviously busy and the buses were running late, they'd miss our part of the route out.
We knew this for a fact as we'd seen them turn right for the return route instead of left onto our road.

After waiting for over 50 minutes one day, I emailed Stagecoach to complain.

A few days later, there was an inspector on the bus we caught, who told the driver that there had been a complaint that some buses were missing part of the route out.
I was very pleased to see evidence that my complaint was being taken seriously.
Anyway, after the inspector got off the driver stopped the next bus coming in the opposite direction and said to the driver 'make sure you go down XXXX Road as the inspector is about and there's been complaints'.

I then emailed Stagecoach again and related what I'd overheard and made the point that it must be common practice for drivers to miss out part of the route out, otherwise why would our driver have needed to say that.

I got a very courteous response and the problem has (pretty much) been solved.

I think you have 2 separate issues here:
1. to get the main timetable problem sorted out. Maybe contacting Stagecoach and your MP?
2. to point out the (imho) indefensible rudeness shown to your partner. I'd go to the top on that one.

I wouldn't mix both of them together, other than to explain why your partner spoke to this 'big cheese' in the first place.

eyelinerprincess

We're the same, there are two services to one place, one goes straight towards this place, the other takes a detour and goes around where I live and then goes towards its final destination. A few times I have been waiting half an hour or more (the bus is supposed to be every 15 mins before 6pm), and as a result was late for work! All because the buses miss out our stop and go the direct way (we see them heading down but they never come back up). Someone complained to Stagecoach and were told "well everyone around there has a car anyway!"

Watto1990

Maybe I should make complaints to Stagecoach too.

The Nottingham bus is always, always, late. Both myself and friends have missed connections thanks to it. And, I feel its inexcusable for a bus to be 10 minutes behind the published timetable every single blooming time.

Not to mention the rude drivers. I was once had a driver refuse to sell me an Explorer ticket (£5 for all day travel on Stagecoach's East Midland buses, plus Sheffield Supertram) for no reason what-so-ever. I simply asked and was told, quite rudely that "no, you cannot have an Explorer ticket." I was so taken aback that I just ended up asking for a return to my destination, which came out to £5 anyway.

It made no real difference, but I always prefer to buy the Explorer, just in case. Might as well get the best value ticket, if its the same price. And the driver looked at me like I'd spat in his face for that!

Not to mention the ticket inspector who got on board and treated every single one of us like common criminals. He could've been a lot more courteous.

Honestly, I hate Stagecoach. Run by a filthy homophobic bigot, as well. And worst of all, they pretty much run all the buses and trains in my area. So, until I pass my driving test, I have no choice but to line their pockets!