Re: Are we passengers or customers?

["Ted Gay" <tedgay@bigpond.com>]

"Santosh Bhat" <santosh@student.unsw.edu.au> wrote in message
3A272604.FBCB9AD4@student.unsw.edu.au">news:3A272604.FBCB9AD4@student.unsw.edu.au...
> Here's an interesting subject I'd like to raise. When travelling on a
> bus or a train or a fery etc..
> Do you regard yourself as a passenger or a customer?
>
Both!  As a tram driver I consider that all my passengers are customers.  Mr
Oxford in part defines a customer as  "person with whom one is concerned" .
I'm concerned with the safety and comfort of all my passengers, who are or
were  boys or girls, many though are not ladies or gentlemen.  Hence my
greeting on the P/A,  "Good morning/afternoon ladies, gentlemen, boys, girls
and others, the next stop is...."

> The difference between the two as I'd say it are that a passenger is
> someone who uses a transport system, whereas a customer is one who is
> using a business product or service.

A fare dodger is a passenger but a ticket holder is a customer.  Mr Oxford
again,
customer = "one who buys, esp. from one seller".

> If I'm regarded as a passenger I'd be willing to accept that trains are
> late, that buses may be cancelled, and overcrowding occurs at some
> times, because these are things that do happen to transport services.
> However If I'm treated as a customer then it means I expect a quality of
> service for the money I'm paying. I would not be happy about a late
> running service as this is poor customer service, and if you think about
> it I should be entitled to a discount or a refund because of the poor
> level of service. This is what would happen in any other business.
>
> So I feel that organisations like Cityrail should take the approach that
> they run a transport service for the people of Sydney and that people
> should accept that things can and do go wrong. But if they start
> treating  everyone as customers then they had better start behaving like
> any other business.

You state that the customers of CityRail "should accept that things can and
do go wrong".

> To give an example: I was stuck for two hours on the M4 motorway as a
> result of Thursdays storm and an accident on the motorway. I then STILL
> had to pay a toll, this is poor service if you ask me, should I really
> still have to pay?

But as a customer of the M4, an alternate transport service to CityRail,
you expect to receive perfect service.  A double standard?

> Cheers
> Santosh (whos like 99.9% a transport engineer now)
>
> PS. If you're a driver/gaurd on a train then YES I know you're neither a
> passenger or a customer.
>
Wrong!  Travelling to or from work I'm riding as a passenger but not as a
customer as I have not paid a fare (purchased a service).

Ted