In the UK, the privatization of the British Railways was set into action on 19th January 1993. The National Rail Enquires (NRE) one of the widely used railway networks in the UK was started in June 1996. Around this time approximately 60 small Telephone Enquiry Bureau were replaced by a nationally available single number at local rates providing train times, fares and information on service disruption was handled by NRE on behalf of the Train Operating Companies (TOCs).
Since the commencement of the NRE , the customers of the TOCs have found a massive change in the way the information is distributed to them in an orderly and prompt manner. The quality of service provided is remarkable. NRE’s telephone rail enquiries is one of Britain’s most used telephone numbers. On the other hand, since the development of the NRE website it has highly facilitated the needs of the customers on account of its vast and detailed information services made user friendly. Recent studies in a survey shows that 90% of the UK citizens were completely satisfied with the website and would recommend it to family and friends. They have lately upgraded the website wherein one can register themselves rather quickly and thus have saved journeys and other travel details which would be readily accessible as and when you log in to the website.
Finding train times is made extremely customer friendly and easier to navigate on the NRE website. As soon as you enter the NRE webpage there is a prominent tab that says “Train times & tickets”. Once we click on this tab a new page opens where you get a dropdown list of your origin of travel and another that gives you a list of the places of your destination. Besides that there is another dropdown list where you can choose the pattern of information you are looking for, be it about trains that are leaving or arriving and First train and Last train. Following this you enter the date of journey and the time of journey. Now when you have fed these information and press the option called “Go” it takes you to a page with a list of trains relevant to your search. Now this is the basic and fastest procedure to get information about the train you are looking for. If you are looking for more, there is an option to enquire trains available for your return journey as well in a similar fashion. It doesn’t end here, you have got more options to find details where you can choose which stations you want to travel via or avoid travelling through and whether you want to include or exclude interchange and thereof add the station name you are enquiring for next to it.
Thus acquiring train timings has become very efficient via these means. In fact, there have been huge modifications recently within NRE’s contact centers. They have outsourced their calls, emails, customer services and calls from Help Points to their partner of five years, an Indian Company based in Mumbai and Delhi called Intelnet Global Services. This has efficiently reduced their cost of services without really hampering the quality of service. They are also taking customer surveys and feedbacks to assess customer satisfaction.
This entry reminds me of when I was a child growing up in Montana. My pappy used to say “When life give you lemons, make lemonade”. But he was a hopeless alcoholic who never made much sense so I never paid much attention to him. Have a great day!