Results tagged “customerservice”

No joke. The Red Line train stations are crowded right now, and the trains are even more packed with people. The official word being piped through the speakers at the stations is that a switch problem has developed near JFK/UMass. All riders going to Braintree need to get off the train and switch at JFK/UMass. The switch problem has caused all trains on the red line to slow down. When contacted, an MBTA customer service... more ›

The MBTA recently set into motion their newest advocate of the CharlieTicket/Charlie Card system – the Charlie Truck. The official spokes-truck of the fare collection system will now roll to public events and locations across the MBTA service area to promote the use of the new fare collection system. Fare collection has been confusing to tourists and locals alike ("Charlie down, arrow up.") The T administration hopes that the customer service vehicle will help to answer questions and get more passengers on board with the token-less system of doing things. The Charlie Cards will soon be available and allow passengers to tap the gate and pass – eliminating the feeding process that the already deployed CharlieTicket requires. more ›

So Bostonist was intrigued to see the article in Slate this morning in which Tyler Cowen proposes that there's nothing that special about indie bookstores apart from their customer service and cozy atmosphere. (Um, duh?) Cowen is an econ professor and thereby most likely does not have feelings, so we have to take his “I'm-a-capitalist-hear-me-roar” piece with a grain of salt, but he comes uncomfortably close to the nail's head when he points out that indie bookstores are just as profit-driven (and sometimes cutthroat) as their superstore neighbors. Harvard Book Store, after all, has the Frequent Buyer Card, which fits nicely in your wallet next to your CVS card, Stop&Shop card, and other mass consumer cards. And Brookline Booksmith is giving away a plasma tv at an author event this week, albeit due to a publisher's mandate. Perhaps Cowen is right, and even indie bookstores are shamelessly out for your money, or perhaps these poor noble enterprises are just trying to survive. Either way, perhaps you should take your halo down a notch when you walk into an indie. more ›

As we all know, Filene’s Department store has been bought by Federated Department Stores this past year, which means that it’s currently on its way out of town. While there are weekly rumors that a Target or Wal-Mart will be plopped into this Downtown Crossing real estate, Filene’s is currently closing up shop with a good ol’ clearance sale. Being the savvy shopper that we are, Bostonist just had to go and check it out... more ›

We first got irritated about this when we made the mistake of signing up for the cheapest health plan at work, only to find out that there were no doctors anywhere near us. When we got on the phone and asked for a general practitioner in or near Somerville, the customer service lady paused a moment, did some clickety-clacking on her computer, and said, "Oh sure. I have someone in War-cester." Considering that Worcester is wicked fah from Somerville, her mispronunciation just added insult to injury. Then yesterday evening, a pollster called to ask Bostonist questions about local politics, which we love. But this guy couldn't pronounce the names of any of the Somerville politicos he was asking us about (or, for that matter, the name of Desmond Tutu), and that made us bullshit. (Also, the poll was obviously designed to get us to say that the campaign to divest local assets from Israel was a terrorist plot designed by communists who kick puppies, and we hate being manipulated so inexpertly that we realize we're being manipulated.) Now we learn, via Universal Hub, that even the MBTA can't get its automated bus announcements to sound regionally accurate (Reading is announced as "REEding"). What's up with that? If Bostonist finds out that the T is announcing Quincy with a soft "s" sound, we will be forced to raise our mass transit annoyance-alert level to wicked ripshit. more ›