Passenger Trains > Who did telephone hire Amtrak hire to set up their tel

I am currently on hold to make a Guest Reward reservation - it cannot be done on line because it requires a bus connection. Amtrak has put together the MOST ANNOYING telephone hold routine in the universe. Five or six different voices explaining e-tickets, Mastercards, refunds, ID, baggage, telephone apps, and USE JULIE etc. The commercials are continuous put for the twenty second splice of James Brown. And we know they want me to have a great travel experience.

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

john1082 Wrote:
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> I am currently on hold to make a Guest Reward
> reservation - it cannot be done on line because it
> requires a bus connection. Amtrak has put
> together the MOST ANNOYING telephone hold routine
> in the universe. Five or six different voices
> explaining e-tickets, Mastercards, refunds, ID,
> baggage, telephone apps, and USE JULIE etc. The
> commercials are continuous put for the twenty
> second splice of James Brown. And we know they
> want me to have a great travel experience.

I just made a Guest Reward reservation on the phone (necessary because it requires a sleeper), and while I was on hold longer than I should be, I experienced none of the things you mention. There was only a message (repeated too frequently) that said the Guest Rewards phone line was open more hours than it had been in the past.

I called from southern California and was repeatedly disconnected from Guest Rewards so I had to go thru the standard res line. It was the standard res line with the continuous commercials.

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA

john1082 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I called from southern California and was
> repeatedly disconnected from Guest Rewards so I
> had to go thru the standard res line. It was the
> standard res line with the continuous commercials.

I should add that when I called Guest Rewards (1-888-707-6600) it would ring once and then stop, and then there would be clicks and buzzes, and silence. This happened three times; on the fourth I was lucky and got through. I certainly would agree that what you describe is pretty offensive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/14 18:51 by Ptolemy.

"Are you sure you don't want to give Julie a try." Over and over they try to direct you away from a live person to robot Julie. But of course she (or it) can't give you a specific room you want or even if the "train is on time." Lets say No. 4 is 2 hours late leaving Chicago. In Julie's world it is only 2 hours late. She has not clue it hasn't even departed yet. I called the Guest Rewards line twice on a recent trip to get a "service disrupted" train's status (even though it wasn't "disrupted" on the portion of route I was travel. No annoying commercials, no disconnect, and the agents were reached quickly, were friendly and responsive.

Tried calling Guest Rewards the other evening. I was on hold for 43 minutes before I finally gave up and hung up. Kept hearing the same recorded announcements over and over. My favorite was, "We're always looking for new ways to serve our customers better." I have a suggestion for you...how about answering the phone? That would serve the customer a whole lot better.

This sounds like something that would be fairly easy to buy a packaged computer system to address. Broadway and off-Broadway theaters have had it for years, maybe decades.

You log on with your computer, enter your pass code, view the seat chart/prices for the day you want, select the seat, enter your credit card info, applicable discount codes, and lock in your seat. There's a warning about the sale being final, etc. You can print out your ticket right then and there.

The Amtrak issue is the same. A limited inventory, distributed over 365 etc days, with varying prices depending on location. Add discounts or AGR info on the pay screen. If you want to block a bozo from booking Minot - Williston in a sleeper, you can do that as well.

Well guys, don't blame the phone company on this one.
I work for AT&T out of Riverside, CA and one of our customers is the Amtrak Reservation Center.
All they get from us is a 50 fiber fiber optic feed which going straight into their phone system.
How their telecommunications vendor programmed it is way beyond our control.

I posted here because I know there are, from time to time, Amtrak management lurkers here on TO

John Gezelius
Tustin, CA