Swiss Railways and the art of personal service

[John Ashworth]

Swiss Railways and the art of personal service

January 30, 2012 9:10 am by John Gapper
FT

It is rare for customer service to be so good as to take one’s breath away but Swiss Federal Railways achieved it on Sunday by making a personal stop for me when I boarded the wrong train.

On my way back from the World Economic Forum in Davos, I had to change at Zurich’s main station to get to the city’s airport. Lacking in concentration after a long week, I got on a train on the left side of one platform instead of the right and found myself heading swiftly along Lake Zurich in the opposite direction.

My fellow passengers informed me that I would have to stay on the wrong train for up to an hour before I could get one back to Zurich, thus ensuring that I would miss my flight to London. Gloom descended.

The conductress arrived to inspect our tickets. I explained what I had done and, after sympathising in English, she advised me to get off again at Sargans, the next scheduled stop. I could return from there to Zurich and try to catch the right connection to the airport train.

Then she asked me what time my flight was and disappeared up the train. When she returned a few minutes later, she had arranged an alternative. She would halt the train solely for me at Ziegelbrücke, the next station along the line, so I could catch a direct train to the airport 10 minutes later.

As if that were not enough, she then wrote down the times on the back of my ticket and offered to call the airline to let them know I would be late.

Sure enough, the train glided to a halt in Ziegelbrücke and she came back to assist me with my luggage. “It doesn’t really make sense for us to stop here, but it helps you,” she said, waving me off along the platform before her train pulled out again on its scheduled journey.

I’ll wait a long time before another business matches that.