First Great Western’s Volo TV oversteps the mark and invades my personal space
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**WED MAY 12th UPDATE**
As a result of our feedback and this post, Paul Soor, MD of Volo TV contacted me today to tell me that the company is abandoning the ‘can’t switch it off’ policy that I complained about in this post. The reprogramming will take 1 – 2 days but Paul assures me that it is definitely going ahead.
He has also invited me to stop by the office to discuss my feedback and to try out the system for free on my trip to Plymouth tomorrow.
Paul’s getting in touch is an example of good social media monitoring and a willingness to hear and act on feedback -to his and the company’s credit.
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ORIGINAL POST
Introducing ‘Volo TV’, a personal TV built into the back of the seat in front of you on the train. A nice idea? Well, no.
With more and more of us owning portable media players loaded with all the content we want, this screen-in-the-back-of-the-seat idea with it’s £3.50 per trip monetisation model misses the…ah, train.
Everything about it is unwanted and unwelcome. And it’s way too close to my face, leaving me feeling claustrophobic and trapped. Worse yet, it’s also permanently on. ‘Since this TV replaces the Safety Card’ says the touch-screen blurb ‘it is not possible to switch the screen off’. Unbelievable. So it sits there, running through its promotional videos and pumping out heat – and there’s nothing you can do to avoid it. Well, almost nothing. The woman in front of me had hung her coat over her screen. Good idea. A quick scan up and down the packed carriage showed nobody watching their VoloTV.
Currently, there’s no advertising – but it IS on its way, and judging by the complete lack of paying punters on our journey today, you’ll be seeing it pretty damn soon. So that’s advertising pumping out of a screen you can’t switch off 8 inches from your face? No f*****g way, First Great Western!
Few things create such a universal and instantly negative reaction as Volo TV did today – and that fact alone marks it out as a stunningly bad move. In fact the invasion of my personal space was so unpleasant that I found myself wanting to break the screen.
Instead, my colleagues and I staged a peaceful protest, sticking king sized post-it notes over the screens and leaving First Great Western in no doubt whatsoever as to our feelings.
I experienced this for the first time last weekend. I could hardly believe that they were un-switch-offable – despite an on/off button under the screen.
I was trying to use a laptop, which was made difficult because the TV encroached into the table space. And with my eye on the laptop’s screen directly below the TV screen it was extremely distracting.
Great lesson in how to piss off your passengers.
Interestingly, your comment arrived just as I got off the phone to Volo’s MD who was telling me that, as a result of this feedback, he has decided to ditch the ‘always on’ approach. Sounds like they learn fast.
I used this volo on my way to cornwall with the kids – it was just brilliant. I loved it, my kids loved it and my partner loved it. It was easy to use and very very good.
If all trains had this you can forget flying.
Thanks for the comment Angela. I am sure it’s great if you choose to book it and have kids who want it.
I think we ended up in the carriage by mistake. I personally probably wouldn’t have chosen it and I don’t know whether the person who booked for us was prompted as to whether or not they wanted ‘Volo carriage’, so can’t comment on that.
I think for us the most annoying thing was the combination of ‘can’t turn it off’ aspect plus being inside my ‘personal space’. On their own they might be ok, but those factors together felt unacceptable to us, hence our feedback. This has been promptly picked up and addressed by Volo TV and the ‘always on’ is being changed, which I hope improves the company’s chances of success with this venture.
Glad to see evidence of a company listening to and acting on feedback!
As your latest comment implies, there’s only one carriage on the train with the TVs. This proves it:
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=4483
Wish I’d known this on Sunday so I could’ve changed seats…
Very interesting article. Indeed, I wrote a similar thing on my blog (http://www.billgbennett.com) this morning, and have had a very speedy reply from Volo’s MD.
As he says “the customer must have a choice”, so the forthcoming update to be able to switch the screen off is welcomed.
Glad to see they’re taking customer feedback so seriously.
Thanks, Bill – enjoyed your rant
I’m meeting with Paul Soor Volo TV’s MD this evening at Paddington which I’m looking forward to.
It’s an interesting situation: none of us (including you) were Volo TV’s customers yet we directed our complaints against them. Technically, we were only customers of First Great Western and our complaints really should go to them. But because the Volo TV screen was in our faces, then that’s where the complaints get pointed.
It’s the price you pay for the territory. It’s good to see that Volo TV are bothered enough about the impact of their decisions on customers and prospects (the 93% of us they don’t expect to use their system) to get in touch and change direction. Hats off to them.
More importantly, hats off to you for writing that whole post on an iPhone. My god, you must have been angry. Are you listening, Apple??
well i’m sitting in front of one of those volo screens right now and you still can’t switch it off! It’s just sat on a red screen with there logo on and i can’t do a thing to it. I’ve tapped the power button, held it down, tried tapping the screen and it just sits on the red screen!
Complain, Dan. Not great if they’ve gone back on their word. Mind you – I’m sure I saw TWO carriages with VoloTV on last Thursday’s London->Plymouth train… Grr.
Dan, you should have got an email from me. The off button has not been disabled. As promised I’ll get back to you with a fuller explanation very soon. Once again, I’m really sorry for the fault. Paul.
My partner and I had to take a two-hour train journey on the weekend. All carriages were absolutely packed, and we had to stand most of the way. We finally got two seats in the ‘media carriage’ and were not happy at all to discover these ‘Volo TVs’ – I am a technology consultant, and have a lot of bad things to say about this technology which Volo claim is ‘state of the art’ and ‘will never become obsolete’ – These claims are laughable for many reasons:
*All* technology becomes obsolete within two years, and VoloTV is no exception because it does not support web-browsing, multi-touch, or USB functionality.
£1.50 for one hour is absolutely too expensive. Everyone in our carriage was using the 5-minute free trial, which reset every time our train left a new station. Using this method it is perfectly easy to watch any of the content on offer in 5-minute chunks. We successfully watched an episode of Friends for free using two screens with two 5-minute trials, the fast-forward ability, and the ‘new station reset’ previously mentioned.
As other users have mentioned, using a laptop is incredibly distracting due to the 8″ screen right in your face. Turning it off using the power button only solved the problem for a while, but *EVERY SCREEN IN THE CARRIAGE* would turn on every 30 minutes or so.
These boxes just look like simple Adobe Flash-based media players – If I had more time to discover if they used a Wireless technology (WiFi, Bluetooth) I would have loved to find a way to hack these machines and give myself £500 free credit, or spam my fellow passengers with obscenities.
I’m an electronic Engineer who builds Tablet computers, and I’m also a data-security expert, specialising in wireless password cracking, network penetration testing and brute-force breaking and entering. It’s only a matter of time before someone like me does something like this
Whilst we are on the topic of Media Players in trains: Where are the USB ports to enable me to play my own content via memory stick?
I’m an I.T professional, and the Internet *is* my livelihood! – Why can’t I surf the internet using this thing?
All Volo have essentially done is stuck an iPad on the back of some train seats, and made rediculous and unprovable claims that they pioneered the technology.
How much did Arriva Trains Wales pay waste on these things when the condition of the rail network here in South Wales is badly in need of funding? Tracks are bent and need replacing, trains regularly de-rail as a result of the poor conditions of the track and the rolling stock. All along the valleys line, millions were spent lengthening the platforms, yet we never see trains more than 3 carriages long, and every seat is crammed with passengers also standing. Ticket prices are going up, and there is no sign of improvement in the rail service other than these unwanted items of technology which are no match for personal media players.
Thanks for taking the time to comment / rant
Rufus. Having met Volo MD Paul Soor, what I can say is that he’s a decent bloke who really believes in his business proposition and works hard to respond positively to feedback about it – but that doesn’t exempt the offering from criticism. I happen to agree with a lot of your points there.
I think you might find that the train company isn’t laying out any money on VoloTV: the costs of equipment and installation are carried by VoloTV, so that line of argument probably doesn’t go anywhere.
I tried out the VoloTV experience (courtesy of Mr. Soor) and it confirmed what I already suspected: that I didn’t want a pay TV option on my journeys. Like you, I thought at the time (and still do) that the future belongs to personal players & gaming devices (smart phones, notepads, Nintendo DS and PSP-type things particularly) and from that perspective, I can’t see how VoloTV can possibly have a future. I mean, those personal devices aren’t exactly going away are they?