The rail industry is perfectly suited for digital technology, from text updates and apps to mapping and mobile tickets. So why have so few train companies embraced this growing medium? Dave Ward from Realise Digital takes a closer look…
Just a few weeks ago, I read an article focusing on the confusion UK consumers experience when travelling by rail. Just think about the complex, jargon-heavy fare systems that mean we often end up paying more than we should for a simple journey. Why do we do it?
The simple truth is that train travel is wonderful. Edinburgh to London – a trip I make fairly frequently – is a joy; four hours of watching the world go by, plenty of legroom, no air stewards trying to sell you scratch-cards. I would choose the train every single time, with just one caveat…
Can you please bring the digital rail experience kicking and screaming into 2011?
Why is it all so complicated?
I have a theory that the reason rail travel is so complicated is because no one has sat down to think constructively about the customer experience.
As a digital native, I find the entire experience of booking a rail journey bewildering. Why? Because in my world we look at complex processes and systems and think ‘how would a human want to use this?’ It’s an age-old issue: an established industry needs to come to terms with the way a modern society operates.
The digital revolution
The rail industry just needs a shift in the way it thinks and operates. How? Well let’s take a look at two user journeys, the current situation and how it could be.
The Current:
You book online using site like trainline.com. At first, it looks great; you can see all the options in one place and you can even reserve a seat with a table.
Arriving at the station bleary eyed at 7am, you pick up your ticket from the machine and four little cards pop out. Every card looks exactly the same and every word is the same size. You finally identify the one you need, but now you’re running a little late and you frantically find the nearest information board.
Finally locating your platform, you realise it’s at the other end of the station. You run, only to find out the train has been delayed by 10 minutes anyway! Exhausted, you get on the train, ready for a nap but you can’t because you don’t want to miss the station where you need to change trains. Getting off at Berwick to make your connection, you start the process again…
Surely there is a better way?
How it could be:
Having booked the same trip to Leeds online you wake up and head to the station. A message pops up on your mobile while in the taxi to tell you the train is running ten minutes late. You open the train operator’s app, which downloads your reservation. There’s no longer a need to pick up tickets as, in a similar way to the British Airways app, the barcode on your screen holds all the ticket information you and the guard needs.
On your mobile screen you see the following easy to follow directions:
• Step one of three – Edinburgh to Berwick (end destination Leeds)
• Departing 8.10 from platform 14, coach C, seat 4A
You click a map button on the screen that tells you platform 14 is on the other end of the station, luckily it lets you know there is a Costa on the way and, seeing that the delay status is still the same, you know you have time to pick up a much-needed latte.
Now on the train, coffee in hand, because the friendly conductor chap has scanned your barcode, the app knows you have started your journey and, using inbuilt GPS, will notify you when you are five minutes away from your first connection – even if the train is delayed or early. You can sit back and enjoy your book or take in the countryside.
Doesn’t this sound like a simpler and more engaging user experience?
Who holds the magic?
There are a few rail travel providers that are leading the pack when it comes to customer service. Among them, Cross Country Trains, who has recently released an application that provides many of these digital services.
At this stage, barcode based ticketing is in its infancy but the basics are there. Open systems and standards will make this more widespread and allow third parties to create even more clever applications. Strangely, Cross Country trains have excelled in the mobile area, but have neglected to install wi-fi on their services, which seems entirely at odds (and also gained them a slap on the wrist and a fine).
Into the future
A new era of engaging and intuitive customer service is upon us; and UK rail companies need to sit up and pay attention to user experience. Every business must take a look at how its customers connect with internal systems.
But to understand intuitive customer service, companies need to borrow a little from Freud who said that our decisions are made with our head, heart, gut and sexual organs! Leaving sexual organs out of it for now, companies have to go back to marketing 101 and realise that the goal is always to talk to a customer’s heart and head. It may seem manipulative, but it is as simple as getting from A to B.
By Dave Ward
Realise Digital
Deputy Creative Director
http://www.realise.com/digital/
