Useless Irish rail twitter.

flyingsnail

Irish rail have been keeping people up to date using twitter. For the most part it is useful information about timetable alterations or delays but every now and then you get something useless like this

Link

Ezios chipper on Amiens St opp Connolly spreading salt on footpath: waiting for them to douse it with vinegar too, & a load of garlic sauce

Is it just me or does anybody else find this attempt at comedy detracts from what could be a useful way of communicating with your customers. Or am I just missing the point?

r3nu4l

flyingsnail wrote: »

Irish rail have been keeping people up to date using twitter. For the most part it is useful information about timetable alterations or delays but every now and then you get something useless like this



Is it just me or does anybody else find this attempt at comedy detracts from what could be a useful way of communicating with your customers. Or am I just missing the point?

It may be an attempt to mimic the (very funny) comments made by someone on the RTÉ weather and travel updates site. So long as the rest of the information is accurate and it's only occasional I don't see the problem.

BrianD

Not at all. Twitter is all about building up a community of users. There's no harm in breaking up the hard news with a bit of colour now and then. Think of it as the fluffy news story that you'll hear in a news buletin or show. Many of the IR customers would use Connolly and would no doubt be familiar with the chipper in question. Shows that there's a bit of humanity behind the tweets.

Top marks to IR they are probably the only public transport company using it well. Non existant usage by Dublin Bus, Luas and Bus Eireann. Aircoach tweet now and again and Dublin Airport are updating as required.

DWCommuter

flyingsnail wrote: »

Irish rail have been keeping people up to date using twitter. For the most part it is useful information about timetable alterations or delays but every now and then you get something useless like this



Is it just me or does anybody else find this attempt at comedy detracts from what could be a useful way of communicating with your customers. Or am I just missing the point?

A bit of fun and Xmas spirit. Only when their tweets are failing to update would I have a problem with it.

Saaron

Lighten up!

sushisushi

Not in the slightest - whoever is running the IrishRail twitter feed has been doing sterling work over the last while and I don't see what's wrong with an occasional funny comment when they have updates on train delays/breakdowns etc up within ten minutes of them happening. I've been on a DART more than once recently when there's been a problem and they're really on the ball (although, there may be Red Bull involved, given one of their earlier tweets

mickydoomsux

BrianD wrote: »

Shows that there's a bit of humanity behind the tweets.

People only want us to have 'a bit of humanity' when it involves them getting out of a fine or some such.

The amount of customers you meet in this job who are just unpleasant and won't have a bit of friendly banter with you is shocking. We're a nation of grumps

CIE

flyingsnail wrote: »

Irish rail have been keeping people up to date using twitter. For the most part it is useful information about timetable alterations or delays but every now and then you get something useless like this:

Ezio's chipper on Amiens St opp Connolly spreading salt on footpath: waiting for them to douse it with vinegar too, & a load of garlic sauce

Is it just me or does anybody else find this attempt at comedy detracts from what could be a useful way of communicating with your customers. Or am I just missing the point?

IIRC, individual twitter posts are called "tweets". Looks like members with access to the IE twitter account are a little less business-minded, and it does make some people suspicious as to what kind of culture is fostered there.

TheChrisD

Yea, seriously, whoever is in charge of the IR twitter is doing an absolutely stellar job helping to keep people updated with the current situations, and unlike most Twitter accounts of the same, is actually run by a person, so they will occasionally @ reply you if you have a problem.

This was an attempt at humour at lightening up their follower's Twitter streams given the current weather situation, and judging by the amount of retweets, it appears as if it garnered quite a few laughs! Just because a transport business understands ideally how to use Twitter and posts the odd thing unrelated to the transport issues doesn't mean it's useless.

Cookie_Monster

its not even slightly funny though.

The RTE stuff has been pretty good, but that IE was pure fail

flyingsnail

Perhaps my heading should have been useless "tweets" rather than twitter. They are doing a good job but I just don't like the tweets that have no bearing on what's going on. For instance at what stage today is this going to be of use to me.

Link

@breakfastnt Happy Christmas Ivan, Chris and all the team: Ivan, we love you really!

Awful_Bliss

I'd agree with the OP. It's unprofessional. The tweets are trying t be funny and they're not.

TheChrisD

flyingsnail wrote: »

Perhaps my heading should have been useless "tweets" rather than twitter. They are doing a good job but I just don't like the tweets that have no bearing on what's going on. For instance at what stage today is this going to be of use to me.

It's an @-reply. You're not going to see it unless you follow the user that they @'d, so it really has no bearing on how useful or not it is.

flyingsnail

TheChrisD wrote: »

It's an @-reply. You're not going to see it unless you follow the user that they @'d, so it really has no bearing on how useful or not it is.

I don't get what you are saying, I only follow Irish rail and RUI and that's what I was sent.

EricPraline

flyingsnail wrote: »

Perhaps my heading should have been useless "tweets" rather than twitter. They are doing a good job but I just don't like the tweets that have no bearing on what's going on. For instance at what stage today is this going to be of use to me.

How familiar are you with Twitter? It's a high volume medium with a low signal-to-noise ratio. If you've used it for any amount of time you'll know that the majority of Twitter content is junk and most people will scan through tweets quickly until they see something interesting or useful. Expecting every tweet to be factual is missing the point of the medium.

While posting something offensive on Twitter would be a problem, many companies on Twitter mix useful content with informal content to give the company a more "human" face. Irish Rail are just doing what most PR agencies out there would advise them to do. It's not the same thing as a company website and shouldn't be treated as such.

Honestly I think they've done a great job. Dublin Bus could really learn from their approach. The IR Twitter feed is far more useful than DB's static web page which is always out of date.

BrianD

Humour, like beauty, is in the eye (or ear!) of the beholder so whether you think a tweet is funny or not is a matter of opinion.

In fairness to Irish Rail they've led the way on how a public transport company should use Twitter and have done a sterling job. The proof is in the number of followers they've picked up over the past few weeks.

It's good that they are not just tweeting an automated RSS feed and that there are some people behind it. They've been very professional to date. They've been both useful to both customers and media who can pass on the info.

As I said Twitter is all about followers and community and you have to provide colour from time to time.

n97 mini

BrianD wrote: »

In fairness to Irish Rail they've led the way on how a public transport company should use Twitter and have done a sterling job. The proof is in the number of followers they've picked up over the past few weeks.

Their communication by other means has been generally appalling, and I suspect this is the reason why so many have resorted to twitter.

My local suburban station has no information whatsoever, meaning that I have no choice but to go on twitter when I'm actually in the station.

BrianD

n97 mini wrote: »

Their communication by other means has been generally appalling, and I suspect this is the reason why so many have resorted to twitter.

My local suburban station has no information whatsoever, meaning that I have no choice but to go on twitter when I'm actually in the station.

What information were you lacking? Online and on-air IR's travel info was well reported with the various delays, cancellations etc. I think they should be commended!

n97 mini

BrianD wrote: »

What information were you lacking?

Day 1: Everything. There were no in-station announcements. There were no staff in a normally manned station. My train was 35 minute late. No-one knew if it was even running.

Day 2: Again no staff. Generic announcement, I presume originating from Connolly, saying most services were running up to 30 minute late. Train arrived on time.

Twitter was equally as useless for me, but I did check it both days.

Rashers72

BrianD wrote: »

What information were you lacking? Online and on-air IR's travel info was well reported with the various delays, cancellations etc. I think they should be commended!

I'd love to know what stations you use. I travel to and from a suburban station to a DART station every day, and the information is very very poor. It has got significantly worse in the last year.
I complained via phone one day, and the customer service staff admitted their number 1 complaint is lack of information by drivers during delays.
I don't have internet on the trains, so am completely dependent on the drivers/DART stations/CTC.
All we hear is Barry Kenny saying 'we'll get you there...there may be some delays'. And of course there was no overcrowding in Connolly during the delays..that was all in the customers imagination :mad:

penexpers

BrianD wrote: »

What information were you lacking? Online and on-air IR's travel info was well reported with the various delays, cancellations etc. I think they should be commended!

The in station information is usually non-existent. I rely on a combination of twitter and the real time info to know there whereabouts of my train. I would never rely on the staff in the station (who have lied to me on more than one occasion) to get info about the trains.

lemansky

Hi guys, seeing as this thread is related to the 'methods' that Irish Rail are using to deal with snow related delays, I thought I'd post this here. Saw this in Maynooth station at about 8 o'clock tonight.



While they were parked like this, a 22k went through bound for Sligo. A minute or so after this was taken, the 29k took off towards Pearse. It was the delayed 19.50 I think.