Monday, August 15, 2011

On The Train (KTMB is a big mess still), Aug 15, 2011


Now two Fridays in a row commuters for the KTMB Komuter were treated like shit by KTMB. I am not going to mince my words anymore and I know it is Ramadhan. Alas, this story need to be told and shared so as KTMB would know that what their Komuters carry daily are human beings. Due to the familiar ‘technical problem’ the train services was disrupted the Friday before last. The saving grace for me was then that the announcement caught me at the right time and place that I could rearranged my transport home. Last Friday I was not so lucky. The 1804 train came almost on time and I boarded happily anticipating I would be home earlier than the usual. Everything went well until we reached KL Sentral where the train was made to wait at the station. As I was busied with my laptop I did not realise it at first until I could sense restless commuters standing in front of me. We had been waiting for awhile and yet there was no announcement. Only later the driver came on the air to see we were waiting for the green light to proceed. By then I was really tired and I decided to close my laptop to have a quick nap. When I woke up I thought we had not moved an inch but when I looked outside we were waiting somewhere at Brickfields. It was pathetic and straight away I knew I was for a long night on the train. I decided to boot up my laptop and fired up my broadband to check if there was any updates. Now we were told there was a technical problem at Salak South. The commuters inside the train by now were tired, frustrated, hungry and very angry. Soon it was iftar and those with water and dates started to pass them around to share. It was a mess inside the train and I could not understand why KTMB did not inform us earlier and let us suffered. I continued communicating with my friends via Facebook and all of them were sorry of our predicament. We have no option but to wait inside the train. After a long suffering the train moved slowly and finally came to rest at MidValley station. I thought our agony would be over but what came next really hit the roof for most commuters. KTMB asked us to disembark there without giving any clue as to what to expect. Practically KTMB dumped and abandoned their customers at MidValley that night. I just walked out and entered MidValley Mall to search for my dinner.
Again the failures of KTMB are:
  1. Failure to inform and communicate
  2. A big time customer service failure
  3. Failure to be human being
  4. Strategy failure
  5. Implementation failure
The added benefit to this episodes is that now I have reason to continue to blog daily.
Today, it is a technical problem at Kuang station!!!!!????? Luckily I am on the six-car limited train to Seremban already

No comments:

THE NEW BOOKSTORE IN TOWN The first Tsutaya Books, like Kinokuniya (Kino), is another Japanese bookstore I admire. It is Japan’s largest boo...