Bank/Monument SAMFs write ...

We in the Bank/Monument ticket offices completely reject the proposed roster and wish to outline valid reasons why.

The roster appears to meet the company’s needs not those of the customers or the station staff.

It seems clear that LUL are playing a numbers game for reducing staff levels and probably using the convenient excuse of the current economic climate to justify it.

LUL are and always be profitable and part of the profit will include the vast sums of unresolved ‘Oyster’ fares.

It is completely unjust to cut costs by reducing station staff, especially with the major engineering projects (not only at Bank/Monument) which are on almost every weekend throughout the network.

It would make sense to keep the full complement of staff until these works are completed and indeed until after the Olympics in 2012.

It is also ridiculous to have SAMFs covering CSA duties at busy stations, this suggests:
a) There is not enough CSAs
b) SAMFs should cover ticket offices and POMs

The main reasons for us rejecting the roster are:

• Growing number of Oyster users means more customers requiring assistance
• Bank/Monument is the only 2-in-1 station on the network with 6 interconnecting lines, causing untold problems, especially with Oyster scanning on the DLR and Waterloo & City line
• It will impact on the customer service for a World Class City
• It will create even more stressful working, with low morale and no job satisfaction
• Fear of more changes after the Olympics , with further staff displacement
• The SAMF roster is anti-social, with early and late turns and 7-day shifts

We already face Ticket Office duties being rarely covered when rostered staff are not there (further undermining our position before any reductions). This stretches our resources to the limit.

Following are 4 examples (A,B,C & D) of actual duties of SAMFs, demonstrating the varied role we perform.

A
Saturday 10th July 2010
Monument Ticket Office

This Ticket Office is under threat of closure but continues to be busy at weekends.

This office already opens late, at 10:00hrs, when customers have been through earlier to buy tickets. When it opened it was busy until 13:00hrs, when it was closed due to no meal relief staff (regularly not covered!)

Even though LUL looks at revenue ‘only’ and on this duty there may only be £2-300 cash takings (plus bank cards etc...), there must be at least 100 conversations with customers before the best product can be offered!!

Often at weekends the best option is a paper ticket/travel card because of the potential problems that weekend engineering works entail and that the Oyster cap is the same as a paper travel card.

Other things throughout the day included, genuine customer errors with Oyster due to planned works, offering directions and other alternative routes, Oyster refunds and resolving scanning errors due to the above works, swipe card transactions, child tickets and failed Oyster replacements!

There was also two note jams in MFM 31 to resolve.

Most of the above can only be performed at the Ticket Offices which offers a quick convenient service.

B
Tuesday 6th July 2010
No Ticket Office Open

Because the Ticket Office duty was uncovered again, as it was from Monday to Wednesday 5th – 7th July, the gate line staff had an impossible job with the following:-

• 3 Lost but registered Oyster Cards
• 1 Customer who had topped up his Oyster online, nominative Monument but didn’t want to travel, so was hugely inconvenienced.
• 1 Customer requiring a paper season ticket.
• 2 New or first Oyster Card customers.
• 2 Note jams in MFM 31 (Again)
• A few customers with journeys disrupted by Piccadilly Line delays resulting in too long on journey charge of £6 !?
• Numerous Oyster queries taking staff away from gateline duties, such as: Luggage Gate, Barrier Problems, Codes 21 & 22, VIP’s, a School Party, Directions and more ...

In summary, these operations can only be done at the Ticket Office and that is good customer care.

Sheets C & D show actual Non-Cash items that occur daily in ticket office duties and these two sheets explain what we have to deal with on bare numbers of staff.

Also sheet E shows an actual statement of overcharging to a customer who made a genuine mistake at Waterloo. Where on 6th July 2010 at 07:38 up to 07:47hrs he was charged £15 when he arrived at Bank.

This is just one of many typical problems that occur using Oyster, that can only be dealt with in the Ticket Office.

We wonder, how many customers have had a similar experience or may not even know that they have been overcharged?!

Finally we need to stop these reductions and continue on as we have always tried to do and offer
‘A WORLD CLASS SERVICE FOR A WORLD CLASS CITY’