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In early February I sent out a piece suggesting that Improved Customer Service is the biggest factor to transit ridership. I outlined the recent troubles facing the TTC had and how their Chairman was in a vulnerable spot and fighting for his political career. Since then he has bowed out of the Mayors race and looks to leave politics any day now.
The TTC and its workers have started to mend the relationship with the general public by holding town hall meetings and listening to the complaints. The news of a driver allegedly assaulting a passenger did nothing to improve this process. We only can hope this was a very isolated occurrence.
Listening to complaints now is a good first step. Solving them when they occur is the next step. Keeping track of the complaints when made is paramount. The TTC does not want to find itself back where it was this past winter.
The question is now what have you done to improve your Customer Service? I am sure there are some that did take steps to see they didn’t fall into the same fate as the TTC. However, I think many hope that it would never happen in their town or City. Perhaps thinking they are too small and no media coverage available that would report this like the print and television outlets in Toronto did.
The fact is it can and will happen. Ridership will fall, or not grow as other similar sized transit systems. The media brought to light what had been happening gradually over time. The fact is that some Towns may be suffering this now and not realize it and the media outlets too small to report it. Suddenly someone will ask where did the riders go? Do you know?
Our database system can track the complaints and through the use of query reports you can see trends occurring. We have had a number of Transit Companies approach us see our database and then leave it in the IT hands. Months go by and nothing. No database collecting complaints and probably decreasing or at least only minor increases in ridership. How much longer can you wait. I would suggest not long.
Managers should take another look at what we offer: “Customer Relationship Management Reporting System”. This system, in short, tracks every complaint ,encourages rapid resolution and then allows for reporting by complaint type for management information and action. It also measures the complaint resolution rate by department. It is easily manipulated for each organizations configuration. It is simple to use and as such very competitively priced to those large add on modules available.
Call us today or e mail us – can you really afford to wait any longer?
April 2010
