Steven Broomhead is chief executive at Warrington Borough Council writes a regular column for the Warrington Guardian

More and more customer business interactions are now “online” and customer service solutions involving real human conversations and contact are on a steep decline.  For those of us who are digitally “savvy” it’s all to be welcomed as it offers quick click solutions to sometimes complex requests. 

If you are like me struggling a little with the digital age it can be a difficult and frustrating process to complete the tasks.  There is no real training available, and you seem to blunder on, often having to go back to the start again and the digital future seems like a nightmare.  Why is it that software writers seem to have a different brain logic to most people I know? 

Currently I have 20 separate passwords which is tough to remember.

Into the digital age comes proposals for the removal of 1007 railway ticket offices including our own at busy Warrington Bank Quay. 

Apparently only 12% of us buy tickets at the offices with the rest purchased “online” or via vending machines. 

The staff in the offices will be moved onto the platform to offer even better face to face customer experience the Consultation propaganda states.  With only 21 days to respond to this plainly daft, wrong and railroaded idea (14 days by the time you read this), the proposals seem to ignore the issues of the vulnerable, disabled and digitally excluded who are unable to transact online. 

There is also the issue of the unreliability of the vending machines and patchy Wifi.

As part of my yearly “Learning  at Work” day in another job, I spent a day with Northern Rail and some time in a ticket office.  The office doesn’t just sell tickets but deals with a constant stream of complex customer queries including those individuals who can’t access their ticket on their mobiles. 

All of these interactions would be transferred to the staff on the platforms potentially compromising passenger safety.

The cheerful and hardworking staff on our main railway station deserve our support to stop these proposals which are probably more about cost cutting than enhancing customer experience. 

Unfortunately you have to go online to the “Rail Delivery Group” to express your opinions.  Of course, you can make your views known via our two MP’s/Council/Guardian.

Please save our main ticket office and in the rush to a digital world let’s give human interaction a chance.