New Roomette Fare Policy?

[SarahZ]

But statistically even on a wildly subjective topic with enough data it can easily be determined which rooms are more popular and these can be charged accordingly. Even a basic voice analytics program used in any call centre would be able to produce the data easily and quickly after a 12-18 months period.

Shhhhh... they'll hear you.

 

[Rasputin]

But statistically even on a widly subjective topic with enough data it can easily be determined which rooms are more popular and these can be charged accordingly. Even a basic voice analytics program used in any call centre would be able to produce the data easily and quickly after a 12-18 months period.

Amtrak can barely run their trains. Please don't give them something else to screw up.

 

[Acela150]

No one is disparaging Floridians. I am a life long Floridian and I take no offense of those who claim the agents in the Florida call center may be incompetent. The Florida call center is fairly new and the agents are contract workers and not Amtrak employees. The call center in Riverside, CA was closed about a year or so ago and some of the agents moved to the Philadelphia call center. The Florida call center was opened around the same time. Those agents do not have the training as the other agents have. @Acela150 I am sure will attest to the fact that the Philadelphia phone agents were trained more extensively than the Florida contract agents.

Since I phone an AGR number, I was told I will never reach a Florida agent. I do not have to ask where the agent is located. I know it is Philadelphia (and sometimes I can tell by the accent. )

Penny is spot on. During my brief time at the Philly Call Center the training is very extensive. I honestly want to say it's a total of about 3 months. 1 in a classroom setting and 2 of them being on the job training taking calls and working with customers. During the first month you do take calls towards the end of the month and do that for about an hour or so. You also "post" during the second week. Which is where one gets a headset and listens to calls and watches senior agents in the Call Center. The only thing I miss about it is that I was working for Amtrak. My commute wasn't ideal sadly. I wasn't there long enough to fall in love with the job, so I guess that's a good thing.

 

[Qapla]

Well, since I live in Florida, I would be glad to "outsource" some Calls for the Call Center if I could do it working from home

 

[Thirdrail7]

Shhhhh... they'll hear you.

Do you honestly think they haven't been aware of this for years?

Amtrak can barely run their trains. Please don't give them something else to screw up.

Once they get their act together, you'll pay more to ride forward, next to a window, in the center of the car.....

Penny is spot on. During my brief time at the Philly Call Center the training is very extensive. I honestly want to say it's a total of about 3 months. 1 in a classroom setting and 2 of them being on the job training taking calls and working with customers. During the first month you do take calls towards the end of the month and do that for about an hour or so. You also "post" during the second week. Which is where one gets a headset and listens to calls and watches senior agents in the Call Center. The only thing I miss about it is that I was working for Amtrak. My commute wasn't ideal sadly. I wasn't there long enough to fall in love with the job, so I guess that's a good thing.

The problem I have with this is the lack of training in the field. How much time was spent on the actual equipment? How much time was spent in an actual sleeper? How much time was spent on a Talgo train so they person on the phone can advise the caller what the differences between the amenities amounts to?

How can you advise the passengers if you're unfamiliar with the product?

How can you sell something you don't truly understand?

 

[Willbridge]

I hope that Philadelphia has learned since the demise of the Montrealer not to answer all calls from Canada in French. When I lived in Alberta and would book trips to Oregon or help friends booking to California it was amusing. Canadian operators had a way of answering in both languages and switching to the one the customer preferred.

 

[Acela150]

The problem I have with this is the lack of training in the field. How much time was spent on the actual equipment? How much time was spent in an actual sleeper? How much time was spent on a Talgo train so they person on the phone can advise the caller what the differences between the amenities amounts to?

How can you advise the passengers if you're unfamiliar with the product?

How can you sell something you don't truly understand?

Trust me, I completely understand your point! I agree with it. I'll drop you a PM to give you some insight on my experience. I don't want to post something on here that could be considered confidential.

 

[SarahZ]

Do you honestly think they haven't been aware of this for years?

I should have added a to my post.

 

[Acela150]

I hope that Philadelphia has learned since the demise of the Montrealer not to answer all calls from Canada in French.

Agents have a phone number to a third party that can translate the appropriate language being spoke into English for the Amtrak Agent.

 

[F900ElCapitan]

But statistically even on a widly subjective topic with enough data it can easily be determined which rooms are more popular and these can be charged accordingly. Even a basic voice analytics program used in any call centre would be able to produce the data easily and quickly after a 12-18 months period.

That’s great and all, but if Amtrak is going to go through all the effort of figuring this out, then why wouldn’t they make it easy to see/display what the cost of each room is? This would be similar to an airline posting the seating chart for a flight and showing which seats are available at a given price and which seats are available for upgrades and the price to do so.

Personally, I was able to switch rooms to what I desired without any extra money and without much effort. All it took was me saying I don’t understand why a different room would cost more. At this point, event the obviously inexperienced agents would contact a supervisor and they were all then able to change the rooms without any extra cost.

 

[Thirdrail7]

That’s great and all, but if Amtrak is going to go through all the effort of figuring this out, then why wouldn’t they make it easy to see/display what the cost of each room is? This would be similar to an airline posting the seating chart for a flight and showing which seats are available at a given price and which seats are available for upgrades and the price to do so.

The problem remains for "through" riders. This isn't a problem on planes where everyone is basically boarding at one location and disembarking at the same location. If Amtrak allowed this, you could have everyone fanning out between different destinations as SarahZ mentioned.

This impacts through ridership....which is why there has been such a stall on the "pick your own" seat front.

 

[F900ElCapitan]

The problem remains for "through" riders. This isn't a problem on planes where everyone is basically boarding at one location and disembarking at the same location. If Amtrak allowed this, you could have everyone fanning out between different destinations as SarahZ mentioned.

This impacts through ridership....which is why there has been such a stall on the "pick your own" seat front.

Yeah, I get that and agree, I was also more talking about sleepers but coach could be added. The advantage would be the ability to show prices and price according to what Amtrak felt appropriate to bookings. Early on with few bookings they could make pretty much everything the same bucket. But later they could show a partially filled room for a cheaper price (on the unfilled section of course), either before or after the partial booking, with fully open rooms being more expensive than the partial room. For example on the CZ, if room E is booked from OMA to DEN and D is open, if somebody looked to book a bedroom from SLC to EMY, then E would come up cheaper than D. This would still allow Amtrak to show D available as a through room for whatever bucket from CHI-EMY.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

I told the rep I will book the roomette #5 in car 3031. I was surprised when the rep quoted me $850 for the trip even though the web says $650. I pointed out the fare discrepancy to which I was informed that Amtrak now sets the roomette fare based on the location. And in this case Room #12 is $650. I have never seen this roomette fare structure before. It has always been one price regardless of the location. Did Amtrak really change how they price roomettes now? If that's the case, I'm done riding Amtrak.

I thought it was always that way, and how they implemented crude bucket pricing within the available limitations?

One goes to book a roomette, you get the lowest priced roomette, which is #12 fixed priced at $650. Once that is booked, the next passenger will get roomette #5 fixed priced at $850. Basically, you have each roomette with a set, non-changing, price, and fill them in low price to high price.