(24 Aug 2014, 9:48 am)Wellsey18 wrote Did you get a worthwhile response, or just the usual sorry for any inconvenience this has caused

I may be wrong, but I think like most of the employees who work at Bensham, the majority of Customer Services staff will be at home. Most office-based employees only work between Monday and Friday. There will be a few members of staff present (enough to man the Social Media pages, answer phones, etc), but I suspect not enough to get through all of the e-mails the company receives.

I'd be very surprised, with it being Bank Holiday weekend, if Adam gets a reply before Tuesday.

He is likely to receive a bog-standard response, with the reason being related to the roadworks previously mentioned, but that does not mean to say that he has just been palmed off. Prior to this, the member of staff dealing with Adam's complaint will forward the e-mail to a member of staff at Washington and Chester-le-Street depot who will then review the CCTV footage for the bus scheduled to operate that service as well as the tracking data which shows where the vehicle was at what time. If they identify that the bus was late (which they should), this will be logged. After multiple complaints build up, the Service Delivery Manager (or another personal responsible) will pass his/her comments up to higher management who can then review the timetable and see if there's anything that can be done to improve reliability.

Again, unless it can be justified, the PVR will not increase - it's more likely that a few minutes will be taken from one section of the timetable where it's thought to be slacker and added to a section of the route where there's less leniency.

Sending e-mails to the company really isn't pointless, and it can really help shape the bus network in your area. The customer may feel like they've been palmed off if they've received a generic e-mail back, but a lot more happens behind the scenes than you'd think.

The process takes a fair bit of time at the moment and relies on members of staff being entirely honest, but this will reduce when new systems (previously discussed) are brought in...