Dealing with derailment socially

I woke this morning around 7.30AM to hear on the radio that there were no London Midland trains running from Bletchley to London Euston – my usual line! No reason given, just to avoid the line. Later on during the 8AM news bulletin, the newsreader couldn’t provide any reason for the problems so I turned to Twitter and @LondonMidland ‘s extremely reliable feed was brilliant as usual:

6.33AM @LondonMidland:

Euston update 8: advice is not to travel if you are heading into London as disruption until lunchtime at least. 

This is a fantastic example of using Twitter quickly and effectively to deal with customers. What’s great is that they had planned for the problems of using Twitter to deal with commuters, and tweeted the following:

6.50AM @LondonMidland:

As it’s likely we’ll be going to #twitterjail today for excessive tweets, pls also follow our backup account @londonmidland2

Great social media planning and execution. The most frustrating thing when commuting is a lack of information about cancellations and delays, and as passengers increasingly turn to Twitter, London Midland is doing a great job of harnessing it to keep people happy. Teamed with Network Rail, this is a great example of using Twitter to keep customers up-to-date and well informed and make sure that those who don’t need to travel and can work from home!

For your interest, here is what caused the derailment:

10.51AM @Networkrail:

This is the train we need to rerail at #Bletchley, with all wheels off the rails: http://twitpic.com/8f3cuk

ALL Travel