A work colleague sent a couple of complaints to Travel West Midlands about her unreliable bus service, and received the following reply.
All red lettering is mine
Dear complainant/whinger
Thank you for your e-mail received at Travel Care on 32 March 2006 (which we immediately deleted) and also your telephone call on 59 March 2006 (which we tried to ignore but somebody inadvertently picked up by mistake).
May I take this opportunity to apologise for the delay in responding to your complaint (we're trained to say stoopid stuff like this in our letters in the vain hope it will make you feel better). Regrettably, due to a number of technical difficulties (it wasn't our turn on the computer this month) some of our customers/victims have not received a response to their complaint within our normal time frame (in other words, we really couldn't be bothered.
I was most concerned (not!) to learn of the problems you encountered on 2 and 6 March 2006 regarding the reliability of our 123 service (we weren’t even aware that we had a 123 service). I can appreciate how frustrating it is when you have had a long wait for this service (again, we've been trained to say this crap in letters, we don't really care about your frustration at all, in fact, we hope it was raining).
Would you please accept my apologies for any inconvenience caused (you won't? okay then, we're not bovvered, are you saying we're bovvered, we're not bovvered).
You may rest assured that as soon as your comments were received at Travel Care they were (thrown straight in the bin) forwarded immediately to the ... er ... management team (I'm pretty sure we have one) at the relevant garage (Glasgow) for investigation/for someone else to laugh at.
Travel West Midlands always aims to provide a good quality (wait while I stop laughing) reliable (oh this is just too funny for words) service. However, there are a number of circumstances outside of our control (like our own incompetence) which can impair our ability to (organise a piss up in a brewery) operate reliably, such as road traffic accidents, road works, inconsistent levels of congestion and adverse weather conditions etc (not to mention the dozy drivers, some of whom we admit look no older than 12 and don't even hold a driving licence).
Notwithstanding this we are committed (and if you don’t stop complaining we’ll have you committed too) to customer care (whatever that is) and will be taking any appropriate action to improve reliability in future (yeah, right, don't hold yer breath, luv). Therefore, when our customers contact us with their comments the following procedure takes place:-
· We try to ignore it
· If we can't ignore it we shred it
· If we can't shred it we burn it
· We use it as toilet paper
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Garage staff are instructed to monitor the operation of the service ("Bus actually left the garage, what happens to it after that ain’t my problem.")
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All observations are reported directly to senior management ("Honestly, I didn't see that little old woman before I run her down.")
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Every effort is made to resolve short term problems as soon as possible (drivers told not to stop at bus stops if at all possible)
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Continuing problems are researched/laughed at and discussed (over a pint at the local pub) during service review meetings/booze ups which are held on a regular basis (every night after work)
I can advise you that it is not in the Company’s best interests to operate a poor and unreliable service (and yet somehow we manage to get away with it), and we are committed to taking whatever measures we can to improve the reliability of our network (well, we think somebody's taking care of it, not quite sure who).
I regret that you have had cause to contact the Company in relation to these matters and would you please not do it again/accept my sincere apologies, once again, for any inconvenience caused. Like we actually care!
Yours sincerely
Blah de Blah <<<<< no such person exists at Travel West Midlands
Customer Service Executive <<<<< a fake department that doesn't really exist
people have been here (spooky!)
