Marketing Speak – Taking your Customers for Granted

Today I am going to get on my soapbox combining some of my particular bête noirs, Virgin Trains, big companies and beardy. I have become quite exercised by the lies that big companies use. So for many years I have travelled every week to and from London on the train from York. Since privatisation this has been using a number of different operators whose service has varied somewhat, in common they all waste money on changing uniforms and the livery of their trains. I have never met one passenger who gives a stuff what colour the trains are, and what the staff uniforms look like as long as they are smart. Yet millions are wasted on changing these.

On March 1 we have yet another handover, from East Coast Trains to Virgin Trains. Now those of you who know me will no how much I detest anything to do with the Virgin Group, mainly because I think that Richard Branson is the antithesis of what a modern businessman should be, particularly in the values that he has and the way that the Virgin businesses are the embodiment of the excesses of the 2000’s.

The current train operator runs a reward system that is similar to air miles. Every train journey contributes to a free ticket, roughly on a scale of one free for five journeys taken dependent on the fare paid. This to me is a highly popular scheme. Now already Virgin Trains have said that they are abandoning this scheme in favour of a more broadly based rewards scheme. Though I can maybe accept this from a commercial perspective, however it is the next step that really annoys me, Virgin claim to be making this change after consultation with their customers. Now the power of social media is that this can be exposed as a lie. Using a specific hash tag it would appear that nobody has been consulted, so Virgin is being economical with the truth. Once again my custom is taken for granted and I am being taken for a patsy.

I have noticed the same with my bank, which claims to listen what I want about interest rates. Last week they wrote to me to say that the rates on my savings account had been reduced. Sure they must be really listening to me, I am always clamouring for my savings interest rates to be reduced. I do not mind if companies make commercial decisions, just do not involve me into your tawdry web.

Rant over.