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“Why is it necessary to spend six billion pounds speeding up the Eurostar train when, for about 10 percent of that money, you could have top supermodels, male and female, serving free Château Petrus to all the passengers for the entire duration of the journey? You’d still have five billion left in change, and people would ask for the trains to be slowed down”
Rory Sutherland
There’s something about weekend train travel that seems so appealing.
No angry commuters, no meetings to get to, no fight for the last seat. Instead, you get to settle down, read a book, and look out of the window whilst the world goes by.
Not this particular weekend, however. This weekend, as I travelled from Reading to Bristol, all I got to watch was a melting pot of families, football fans, hen dos and stags dos all try to avoid each other’s sweaty armpits.
I thought I’d been quite clever. As the train rolled in, it was clearly crowded. So I headed to First Class, thinking for the journey I had to do, the £10 upgrade was worth it for a seat and some food. I sat down and, within minutes, the guard was with me, checking my ticket and taking my payment.
But by the time we got to Swindon, all hell had broken loose (and not just because trains can’t go round roundabouts).
It turned out, the train was only 5 carriages rather than 10 (presumably because the other five carriages had over-slept or were on strike). But there were ten carriages worth of people. Pretty soon, First Class was was understandably overflowing with anyone that could get on, and this time, the train manager was staying in the safety of the mysterious little room train managers have at the front of the train.
The next day, I got in touch with the company to get a refund on the upgrade, only to be told that you can only claim compensation for a train that is delayed, not for one that is on time but with an uncomfortable experience (and mine was more comfortable than most, as I at least had a seat).
Which brings me back to Rory Sutherland’s quote at the start.
Listen to The Human Experience
I’ve always been interested in the train industry’s obsession with timeliness over everything else. More than 15 minutes delayed, even if your journey is six hours? Money back. Have to stand on a train with no air-con, no toilet, and a high chance of contracting a contagious disease? Tough luck, I’m afraid.
In his TED talk that the quote at the start comes from, Rory refers to this as ‘hedonic opportunity cost’; that by focussing solely on speed, Eurostar missed opportunities to enhance the overall passenger experience.
Arguably, the same is happening with HS2 now. Yes, there’s a need for increased capacity on the line. But do I need to get to Birmingham twenty minutes quicker, or with better wifi, a better seat, and better beverages, am I quite happy with the time it takes now?
And if I do get a train now and I have to stand the whole way, meaning I can’t work, it’s hard to read, and I’m forced to instead scroll through Insta and spend money on things I absolutely don’t need, surely that’s worth compensation as much as a fifteen minute delay is?
For me, this is a great example of a whole industry – with some exceptions like LNER and Chiltern Railways – focussing on the functional experience over the emotional one, doing more things more quickly, rather than better and more enjoyably.
Of course, this is true in almost every industry. Inside-out thinking means that when it comes to designing new experiences, their ideas are limited, focussed on copying competitors, delivering to regulations, or simply doing what customers say they might want.
What’s needed is a more creative, more outside-in approach, looking not just at how they can fix pain points, but how they can delight and differentiate, too; following not just what those that are close to them are doing, but taking inspiration from all sorts of perspectives, leading to genuinely trailblazing ideas.
Ironically, as I was sat on a train putting the finishing touches to this, I noticed my normal stop wasn’t listed for my normal trip home. A quick Twitter message revealed why:
As the train filled up to standing room only, the driver came on the tannoy to offer some helpful advice for those of us trying to get on:
‘As I’ve already said, the train is busy today. So there’s no point complaining, it’s your choice. No-one is forcing you to get on’
Thanks for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe to my monthly newsletter below, find me in picture form on Instagram @johnjsills, or in work mode at The Foundation and LinkedIn.
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