I think Thames Clippers’ signage is much improved of late, phew

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written about Thames Clippers on here, though I’ve regularly mentioned on my other blogs and on Twitter how much I absolutely LOVE their ferries. Always have, just lovely, I recommend sailing on them. I recently travelled to Battersea Pier (opened up a wee while ago, new piers come online every so often) having not been anywhere for ages (pandemic) and was really pleased to see upgraded electronic signage at Greenwich and Battersea piers and hope that information across the routes has been similarly upgraded. It’s MUCH better.

I found an email / rant from a couple of years ago bemoaning the confusion at Embankment Pier and it also reminded me of how hilariously useless some of their early marketing emails were back in 2009-2012, so I’ve linked those posts at the end. Haha 🙂

Email sent by me on 7 August 2019 – I’d been in touch with them to see if they’d highlight the local film festival and also wondered if they’d like to be one of the sponsors (they did advertise but I withdrew my request for sponsorship and encouraged them to spend the money on better signage). I wrote this on a phone on one of their ferries home, I might have tidied it up a bit if I’d been on a laptop.

From: Me
Sent: 07 August 2019 15:36
To: Thames Clippers
Subject: Re: MBNA Thames Clippers Enquiry – Marketing Enquiry

Dear Thames Clippers

I’m assuming the answer at this stage is probably ‘no’ to sponsorship but thank you for your consideration thus far. Alas I’m writing to withdraw my request for sponsorship as I think the ~£100 would be far better spent on improving your own signage at Embankment 😉 A laminated “Woolwich, via Westminster” sign would probably suffice.

While I love your ferries (I’m drafting this on the gently floating ~22:54 Cyclone home to Greenwich, lovely – though I could do without the music from the coffee shop radio but can’t be bothered to ask them to shush it) the instructions to ferry passengers at Embankment are a chaotic mess. I’ve just walked past a man and three friends at the pier, evidently visiting London. He was on the phone to someone explaining they’d just missed the last boat home as the next one was only going as far as Westminster.

Before I interrupted to correct him I thought I’d better double-check – it’s a while since I’ve taken a late-night ferry from Embankment myself but I was fairly sure it would loop round and head back East (and take me home to Greenwich). There’s nothing at the pier that actively reassures anyone or flags this up to potential passengers such as “Guess what – all the boats that say Westminster actually also go to Woolwich – surprise!”. It’s not at all obvious, even to those of us who use the RB1 service regularly or for many years.

I used your (very good) app’s timetable to be absolutely certain that the next boat would indeed stop at Westminster and Woolwich, then relayed this to the people planning their Plan B, who were delighted and agreed the info was not obvious. So I got you those four customers at least 🙂

But how many people just give up and assume the Westminster-bound boat stops at Westminster and goes no further? True there are timetables and routemaps at the pier but how many people seeing a sign saying “Westminster” would even think of checking or asking to see if Woolwich is part of that journey? They’re in opposite directions (!) so I think people can be forgiven if they don’t spot this.

Who – unless they know the quirks of your looped and only partially-advertised route – could possibly know that this was even a thing? It’s just bonkers. Regular users know (including me, though I still had to second-guess myself just in case things had changed) and can pass the info on, but if I were a visitor I’d never imagine that the destination board was ‘lying’.

When the boat arrived saying “RB1 Westminster” I asked why it said that and not Woolwich. Westminster is its destination, I was told. But it isn’t! It’s like having a train that goes to Scotland but advertising it as a Watford-bound service. (At least Watford is heading in the same direction).

Why? Why Thames Clippers would you hide your fabulous Woolwich-bound service under the cover of one going only to Westminster and treat this as perfectly normal? Surely I can’t be the only person to point out how deranged this is and it must lose you at least some ambient custom from non-regular users who are untrained in your ways. It’s genuinely baffling. Is it some weird maritime custom?

There are signs at tube stations saying things like “all trains go to X”, why not adopt something similar? Do the pier’s owners not permit any changes? If you tell me who they are I will gladly write to them and whinge about this.

Beyond that, the boats are great and I love getting them whenever I can, in preference to all the other options available to me. But please survey Embankment Pier visitors and passersby and see how many know where the boats actually go.

Sorry for the extended remix rant. I do love (love!) your ferries, honest! Just not the pier signage at Embankment.

Thanks
Jo

Previously hopeless marketing content

• Finally someone *gets* marketing emails at Thames Clippers 🙂 (16 December 2012)
• More fun with Thames Clippers’ communications (18 April 2011)
  Hopeless marketing fail from Thames Clippers (18 February 2011)
• Advice to businesses that have e-newsletters / alerts (12 February 2011) <– not specifically about Thames Clippers but their newsletter definitely prompted it
• I think this might be the least useful email I’ve ever received 😀 (13 December 2010)
• What’s missing from this Thames Clippers’ email? (11 December 2009)