We are committed to making travel easier and more comfortable for all our customers. Whether it’s helping people with accessibility needs, making stations easier to use, or offering support during journeys, we aim to give passengers a smooth and stress-free experience. Our teams are trained to help, and we’re always looking for better ways to meet people’s needs.
Customer Satisfaction
We listen to feedback and keep track of how well our services are working, so we can keep improving the customer experience. We monitor customer feedback through our Voice of the Customer survey programme as well as contacts submitted to our Customer Service Centre and our Social Media team.
The following table sets out how we are performing in terms of overall customer satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with the way we handle disruption, recognising that this can be a challenging time for customers.
Note: the scores in the table are moving annual averages (MAA), so reflect the scores over the previous 13 four-week periods.
Our years run from 1st April to 31st March and include 13 four-week periods - shown as "Px" in the table above.
When disruption does occur, real-time information is shown on our plan my journey page. Information screens at all of our stations show upcoming departures and their calling points. Members of staff assist at staffed stations, and we have help points available at all stations which can be used to get support 24/7. On the train, our guards will announce information about delays as appropriate.
We strive to be transparent when we encounter disruption and have also agreed a set of industry Customer Pledges which details our commitment to supporting you during disruption and ensuring you get to where you need to be as quickly as possible.
What we’re doing about it
Overall Satisfaction has dropped significantly in P08 from 71% in P07 to 65% in P08, which sees our Overall Satisfaction on a 13 period Moving Annual Average drop below our target of 70% to 69.12%. P08’s results are driven largely by drops in satisfaction with punctuality (down to 69% from 78%) and space onboard (down to 67% from 72%). As detailed on [Our Performance] page, there is significant work underway to improve performance for our passengers. Customers will also continue to benefit from the introduction of our new Arterio fleet, with 28 diagrams now introduced. As introduction continues, our passengers will benefit from the additional capacity this will provide.
In recent periods, we have unfortunately narrowly missed our target for customers’ experience with the handling of delays. This is closely linked with how the trains on our network are performing as a whole, and as detailed on [Our Performance] page, we have experienced recent disruption events that have had a negative impact on customers. This includes signalling and other equipment failures, and a major incident involving the emergency services at Vauxhall on the 13th October that impacted many customers travelling that evening.
We currently have more focus than ever on both improving the way services are managed during disruption and the information that we share, recognising the impact that not getting this right has on our customers. We use the above metric and other targets to identify where improvements need to be made and actions need to be taken. Actions recently delivered or in the pipeline include clearer information on alternative travel options on our screens and via announcements, more informative information messages on our website, and information-specific learning reviews after events to ensure findings are captured and actions taken.
Accessibility
We offer comprehensive passenger assistance through the national Passenger Assist system, allowing customers to request help with station navigation, boarding, and ticketing either in advance or on the spot. Assistance is available at all SWR-managed stations, as well as key Network Rail locations like London Waterloo, Clapham Junction, and Guildford. For unstaffed stations, onboard teams and a 24-hour contact centre ensure support is still accessible.
While booking ahead via the Assisted Travel page helps streamline the experience, SWR also promotes flexible options like “Turn Up and Go” and Assisted Boarding Points, empowering customers to travel with confidence and ease.
More detail on our assistance services are provided on our Assisted Travel page.
To ensure high standards of service, SWR actively monitors performance against key metrics and uses customer feedback to drive continuous improvement across our Assisted Travel offering.
Our years run from 1st April to 31st March and include 13 four-week periods - shown as "Px" in the table above.
We are committed to continuously improving our Passenger Assist service through customer feedback. Please visit this page for more information
Ticketing
There are lots of different ways to buy train tickets, including online using our online ticket sales platform, from a ticket office, a self-service machine or through our app. In some circumstances you can also buy tickets on board the train. Visit the Train Tickets section of our website for more information on how to buy tickets.
We monitor our performance against measures including ticket office opening hours, the number of hours our ticket gatelines are operational, and the availability of ticket vending machines. You can check whether a station has an available ticket office or ticket machines on our station information pages. Facility status updates are provided here.
Our years run from 1st April to 31st March and include 13 four-week periods - shown as "Px" in the table above.
