Making a complaint

If you are unhappy with any part of our service, there are several ways you can tell us.

Talk to a member of staff

We train our staff to handle complaints fairly and efficiently, and we provide them with several tools to help them solve problems on the spot if they can. If you see something wrong, let a member of staff know as soon as possible and they’ll try to help there and then.

If they can’t help, or if you want your complaint formally recorded, they’ll provide the contact details for our Customer Support team or pass on your complaint themselves if they’re able to.
Get in touch with our Customer Support team

Our Customer Support team are ready to help and can be contacted by completing our online contact form.

Our stations and trains also carry copies of our ‘tell us your views’ forms. Just ask a member of staff and they’ll give you a copy. Completed forms can be sent to ‘Freepost GWR CUSTOMER SUPPORT’ free of charge.

The team can also be contacted by calling 03457 000 125 (06:00-23:00).
Get in touch with our Social Media team
You can also get in touch with our Social Media Team between 06:00 and 23:00 every day. If they can’t help, they will pass your complaint to our Customer Support Team.
- Twitter: @GWRHelp
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/GWRuk
- WhatsApp: 07890 608043
We can’t talk about staff complaints on social media. So, if a complaint is made about a member of staff we will need to remove it and direct you to our Customer Support team.

What to include with your complaint

The more information you can give us, the quicker we will be able to reply to you. Where possible, we need to know:

the time and date of your journeys
the stations you travelled to and from
the names of any staff involved
copies of your tickets and any other documents that might help

Helping you make a complaint

You can ask a friend, family member, guardian, support worker or carer to make a complaint on your behalf. We'll just need your permission to deal with them. This does not apply if you are the parent or guardian of a child aged 16 or under.

Responding to complaints

We aim to respond to all complaints within 5 days of receiving it. Sometimes it can take longer, if we have to investigate what happened for example. For the last 4 week period our average response time for complaints was 5.6 working days.

Complaints Handling Policy

You can download our two Complaints Handling Procedure documents by clicking on the links below.

Complaints Handling Procedure – How to make a complaint (PDF, 204 KB)

Complaints Handling Procedure – How we deal with complaints (PDF, 189 KB)

Rail Ombudsman

Please give us the opportunity to try to resolve your complaint. If you’re unhappy with the response you receive, you have the right to appeal to the Rail Ombudsman. The Rail Ombudsman is there to help resolve ongoing disputes between us and passengers. It’s free to use their services and they are independent of the rail industry. They don’t take sides but just look at the evidence available. They will help us both to try to reach an agreement, but if this doesn’t happen, they will make a decision based on the evidence they’ve received. If you agree with their decision, then we have to act on what they say.

You can appeal to the Rail Ombudsman if:

you’re unhappy with our final response to your complaint, which will be contained in a letter or email (sometimes called a ‘deadlock letter’); or
we haven’t resolved your complaint within 40 working days of receiving it; and
no more than 12 months have passed since we sent you our final response

There are some complaints that the Rail Ombudsman won’t be able to look into, for example, if it’s about the way one of our services has been designed or industry policy. If that’s the case, then they’ll contact you to let you know.

If possible, they will transfer your complaint to another organisation that may be able to help you further, such as Transport Focus and London TravelWatch – the independent consumer watchdogs for the rail industry. They will independently review your complaint and where appropriate, follow things up on your behalf.