IMHO

An open letter to Greyhound

Written By: Miranda - Sep• 26•09

To the Greyhound company:

I have been unable to get schedule information about buses going from White River Junction Vermont to Boston Massachusetts from your website.

It is obvious to me that the website was launched with no usability testing whatsoever since it is unusable unless you want to buy a ticket online. I don’t.

I just want to know when the buses leave and when they come back.

After getting the phone number for Greyhound from Information (because it is not listed in the local phone book with all the other bus companies) I called.

I did manage to wade through Gracie’s (my virtual travel advisor) endless phone menus to get the buses going from WRJ to Boston. I think they are for today but there is no indication whether the schedule is different on weekends.

Trying to get any information about buses coming back the other way though, now that was a problem. The first phone menu invited me to choose from New York, Canada, Maine as destinations. No Vermont.

So I had to pick the first letter of the state that I was coming from – M for Massachusetts. Then a list of states with M – by this time I was so frustrated at trying to get the simplest piece of information out of your company I hung up.

I will ask the lady at the ticket counter in White River – she brings her oxygen tank to work with her and can be pretty snippy but at least she can tell me things about the buses. Something that all this technology seems to be entirely unable to do.

I do not want to buy a ticket online. I do not want information on what I can carry. I simply want to look up the schedule of bus runs between Boston and White River and perhaps print them out.

But I think I have discovered your secret. No phone number in the book, no schedule information on the website, a gauntlet of Gracie menus….
I get it, I get it. Greyhound doesn’t actually want anyone to use their buses at all! That’s it! You just don’t want anyone to trouble you!

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