CSQ

Customer Satisfaction questionnaires are the National Express way of obtaining customer feed back. They are supposed to be handed to every passenger on every journey.This is fine until you have regular passengers and those that are travelling on a return trip. 'We have already filled one in' is the reply. Anyway there is the talk of a bonus to the driver who have the most returned. So I ask all the passengers to fill them and if they feel strongly about them to put there comments in the comments box. I know companies want to know what their customers think but am sure there are better ways of doing this. An email sent a few days after the booking would be good.

A Long way home (again)

Yesterday I was looking forward to a nice easy drive up to London and a nice drive out to Street. How wrong I was. I arrived at the depot to be told 'serious RTC at J18-17 you will have to go through Wooton Basset' Ok not the end of the world and as I had no pick ups we arrived at Swindon only 20 mins late. As the running card allows about 20 min extra we arrived in Heathrow on time. However due to the RTC there were 3 coaches all with out of hours drivers. I only had 10 passengers on so was able to take a lot of the stranded passengers on to Victoria. Arrived in Victoria on time and unloaded the grateful (ish) passengers.
Had my tea and headed out to find my coach. This is the 502 due in a 1730, I did think he would be late so went over to ask the staff what was happening. 'you and your passengers along with the 501 and 509 are going out to Heathrow to meet yourcoach'. Great I get 40 minutes extra driving time. When we got to Heathrow there was no sign of the coach and took some time to find out what was going on. Turned out the coach had not arrived and we had to wait until 2025 to finally leave. Notified control that we would be doing 'drop off's only'. Arrived back in Bath at 0000 about 30 mins late.

A Long way home

First day back yesterday after a 'long weekend'. Had the 'all dayer' (0900-1030). Phone call at 0800 to say I would have to make my own way to the Bus Station as no spare coach available. Turned out the traffic was so bad I ended up walking from the depot! Good trip up though and arrived at Nine Elms in time to enjoy a very nice Beef Stew and dumplings. Arrived at Victoria for the 1800 departure to be told the A4/M4 was shut!! The alternative route is out via the A40 along to the A316 and back to J3 of the M4. So off we went with the the 402 in tow as he was unsure of the route. It took 45 minutes to get the 1 mile to Marble Arch and by the time we got to the A40 we were over an hour late. Had one passenger at Heathrow and received a phone call from the 1900 to say he had picked them up. So a call to control and we went out along the A40 down to High Wycombe and rejoined the M4 at 8/9. I haven't been down that bit of road for about five years so interesting to see how my home town had changed (not much). Arrived at Swindon 30 minutes late and finally back at Bath 20 minutes late, so all in all not a bad recovery and one of those days where you have to earn your money.