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WEDNESDAY 29TH MARCH 2006

Today I hitched a lift into Basingstoke with my brother in his car as his workplace is just a ten minute walk from the railway station. This saved me hanging around in the cold. At around 08:45, Francis Oldfield arrived and we walked into the 'Centre Stage' building on platform 1 of Basingstoke station. Once everyone had arrived we all entered the meeting room. In attendance were (including Matthew and myself) 9 people out of the 19 people who attended the initial induction day on Monday. It started off with the handing out of itineraries for the day ahead.

The first half of the 'Customer Service Day' was discussions about the values & behaviours and what they meant to us and how one would use them to deliver the customers the company vision. To do this we were split into two teams and presented our ideas in a presentation. We also discussed the different types of customer and how each one expects to be treated. We concluded that the commuters wouldn't want staff to chat to them a lot and just want to be left alone to get on with their journey, where as the leisure customers want to see a friendly face as for families with young children, the train ride is all part of the experience of their day out.

After yet another delicious buffet (the third in our two weeks!) supplied by South West Trains, we re-entered the meeting room to find the curtains on the performance area drawn back to reveal the generic inside of a 'Desiro' train, a fake brick wall displaying a train timetable and a mock-up ticket office with the name 'BestWay' on a genuine station name board. All was soon revealed when we were each given a task to perform with a professional actor. The actor took a whole variety of roles for each person's scenario. My scenario was dealing with a very nervous passenger on the platform, confused by the timetable and partly frightened of train travel in general. I approached this very nervous passenger who found it difficult to talk. I reassured the passenger that she could take as long as she wanted to say where she was going to and presented myself with a smile. When she was stuttering the word 'Brookwood' I asked if this was her chosen destination and pointed to it on the timetable. When she nodded I looked at the timetable more closely and told her when the next train departed, when it would arrive at her destination and from which platform it would depart from. When I said platform two I told her it was over the footbridge and down the other side. She then got nervous once again so I decided I would accompany her to her train.

After each of us had dealt with our scenarios we got feedback from our day. I was told that I had lots of good ideas but I didn't always say them. I was also told that I show a good understanding of the company vision and the values & behaviours. I apparently also showed good customer care and that customers are able to trust me. The reasons why this was brought to my attention were because I kept good eye contact with the customer, I was helpful such as assisting the customer to the train and looking up the arrival time. I am also able to be patient, keep customer's personal space, give customers reassurance and am always happy to assist them.

When leaving the building we all said goodbye to each other and some of us walked to get the London bound train which I could catch with them as it's first stop was Farnborough, however Matthew (my fellow student who lives in Basingstoke) got pulled aside by none other than the anti-terrorist police (or similar) despite just coming out of a SWT office! I then noticed that of the many random checks they were doing, they were all on under 18s. Upon arrival home I saw an ex-Virgin Class 47 hauling the second refreshed Class 442 back from Ilford.

Overall today was quite enjoyable and I'm sure tomorrow will be good to. Myself an Matthew are travelling up to Waterloo again but this time we will not just be assisting the guard but also having a look around the London Waterloo control centre which I am told is a very interesting place. More on that tomorrow!

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