SNCF Connect: users download the application

SNCF Connect had to “keep it simple”. But since its launch, the application has received a slew of negative comments. “A real mess”, “counter-intuitive”, “very disappointing”… The latest reviews posted on the Play Store are killers. Users complain of poor ergonomics, unnecessarily complex procedures and malfunctions.

On Twitter, many Internet users made fun of the new SNCF platform, which succeeded January 25 to oui.sncf and the L’Assistant application to combine real-time information and ticket sales. “I propose that the reservation of train tickets by the SNCF Connect app becomes an Olympic discipline”, for example tweeted comedian Tanguy Pastoureau. “Impossible, the rules are too complicated for the general public”, immediately replied a surfer.

I propose that the reservation of train tickets by the SNCF Connect app becomes an Olympic discipline.

— Tanguy Pastureau (@TanguyPastureau) February 4, 2022

Bugs, disappearance of functions and illegibility

“Who can sit next to SNCF Connect and say ‘I’m even less ergonomic than you’? », asserted the data science student Matthieu Gariel. Behind more or less elegant qualifiers such as “stew” or “interstellar dung”, there are many more substantiated criticisms.

They range from the disappearance of functions that previously existed to the multiplication of bugs – with the exasperating message “An unknown type error has occurred” –, passing by the proposals of eccentric routes and a serious lack of readability.

With #SNCFConnect, get support from the 1st to the last km ???????? Where are we taking you?

— SNCF Connect (@SNCFConnect) January 31, 2022

“Handling problem”

“Our members tell us that they have multiple lifts,” confirms Bruno Gazeau, president of the National Federation of Transport User Associations (Fnaut). “This site is more complicated to use, there is more richness on the pages. There is a problem of getting started which cannot be done in a few minutes”, testifies Bruno Gazeau.

The search engine, which invites you to type your search in the bar “Search your trips, short trips and much more…”, leaves more than one perplexed. When he doesn’t send Barrière de Paris to Toulouse or rue Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris who hits Paris-Toulouse. “Basically, there are features that have disappeared,” points out Bruno Gazeau. “We told the SNCF, they should do something. »

Feature Removal Alert

He cites the possibility of choosing a stage in his itinerary, the comparison of prices according to train timetables, or the possibility of registering his loyalty card elsewhere on the telephone. Other criticisms concern the impossibility of making more than two connections, difficulties in modifying online reservations or the disappearance of the storage of tickets on the Wallet of iPhones.

The surprise is great for some, since the public company had promised that we would find on SNCF Connect everything that was previously available on oui.sncf and the other applications replaced by its new digital “one-stop shop”. Not to mention lost tickets in the transition to the new app, and QR codes that have become unreadable.

For the SNCF, the transition “is going well”

But SNCF Voyageurs minimizes the situation. “Numbers are important thermometer elements, and they tend to reassure us,” said a spokesperson. “We haven’t lost any customers”, with 6 million tickets sold since the launch of SNCF Connect – a steady pace – he rejoices. “The transition is going well for a large majority of people. »

“We assume the break in terms of customer experience, and we were perfectly aware that it was going to provoke reactions,” he adds. To respond to complaints, the company has strengthened its hotline platform. She promises to “hear and listen” to criticism, in order to improve SNCF Connect.