Poor Customer Service

It is with absolute dismay and disgust that we write to you as a collective in order to complain about the type of service or shall I rephrase and say no service to such a big company and brand as the Greyhound.

To begin with, we started our journey from Johannesburg with bus number 13374 (11:30) which was delayed by 2 hours only departing at 13:30. Fairly so, we got notification as to the delay but no information as to why and worst of all by how long. We are so used to poor service or no service as customers and consumers in this country. We already operate under an arrogant, complacent and unaccountable government.

To make matters worse when we reached Bloemfontein we were informed that our next stop which was Colesberg we will have an hour stop to wait for a bus from Cape Town and God knows why. Again we are just at the mercy of staff who have no regard for time or some logical explanation. We as passengers book tickets based on time of arrival at destination. With all these uncer*****ies it's difficult to keep family and friends updated who's coming to pick us up, for some of us it's about deadlines that have to be met at destination.

Furthermore, we get to Touwsrivier to discover that one of the trailer wheels has fallen off with most of the studs broken off with only one remaining. Upon enquiring from the driver as to the next step he was unable to respond as he was waiting on directives from your support office which at the time was going to take 10 minutes. Guess what, we were then left stranded and uninformed as to timelines, where the mechanic was gonna come from, how long the repairs will take for more than an hour. Nice for a big company as yourself where the left hand didn't know what the right hand is doing. While all this is playing out I tried to reach out to your Johannesburg office on the number listed as per booking ticket only to have the phone dropped on me not once but thrice with your "customer care" agents. They outright refused to take my number in exchange for feedback. I want this investigated as a matter of urgency and action taken against them. It's unacceptable and very unprofessional. My calls were somewhere between 08:45- 09:50 with the first agent going completely quiet on me and eventually dropping the call. The second call I again spoke to an agent that also went quiet on me but I then insisted to speak to a manager who surprisingly pulled the same stunt as the initial call centre agent. At that point I knew I was dealing with *********** staff that had no idea what customer service is all about. This is a serious opportunity for you as an entity to do some introspection, restructuring and come up with a better approach to the people who keep you in business.

We've asked, we begged whether it's possible to unload the trailer, put our luggage in the bus with your call centre agents going numb on me. It's then that we as a collective decided to empty the trailer and pack it into the bus ourselves so we could continue our journey because there were absolutely nothing wrong with the bus. Only after this exercise we then got word from the driver that we could leave the trailer behind and continue our journey. Strangely after we left around 10:06, notification came through that the bus would be delayed by approximately 2hrs 20min as a technician has been dispatched.

Whilst all the drama and uncer*****y played out five passengers arranged alternative transport obviously at extra cost which is so unfair.

Realistically we understand that you have operational costs and that you have covered considerable distance but we feel a 50% refund would be reasonable to compensate for the inconvenience as well as delays without proper information. We were supposed to arrive in Cape Town at 08:45 this morning according to our booking but only arrived 5 hours later. Please revert back within 48 hours and please ensure everyone including the ones who made alternative arrangements from Touwsrivier are all copied in. Please also note that not everyone on the bus has been copied in on this email so please ensure that your response reach everyone that were booked on the bus. Arrival time, and 13:45.

Please note that I have obtained contact details from passengers with their concent and therefore have copied them in on this writing.

Should you need any further information please feel free to contact me.

Warm Regards Cedric Davids ***