Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices (2018) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 17-29
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From page 17... ...
17 As discussed, in the context of this synthesis, a service guarantee is defined as any explicit transit agency commitment to a quality customer experience, regardless of whether the agency compensates or responds directly to individual customers in the event the commitment is not met. This chapter presents the results of the service guarantee section of the transit agency survey and is broken into the following sections: • Types of service guarantees; • Prevalence of service guarantees; • Details of actions promised under service guarantees with action; • Limitations placed on service guarantees; • Service guarantee claims processing; • Details of nonaction guarantees; • Implementation of service guarantees; and • Benefits, challenges, and lessons learned.
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18 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices often reported having a service guarantee even when that guarantee was a general commitment in a mission or vision statement. Transit agencies also could write in service guarantees they had that did not fit into the five types listed.
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Service Guarantees 19 (as of 2017) , with a median duration of 13 years.
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20 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices Punctuality guarantees were the most common guarantees with promised actions. Metrolink was the only transit agency that had a connections guarantee.
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Service Guarantees 21 Metrolink will reimburse passengers for costs incurred (up to $50.00) for using other transportation options (e.g., taxi or TNC)
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22 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices Customer Claims Submission Process At all of the transit agencies except two, customers had to file some form of claim to receive the remuneration under the guarantee. Metro Transit, during its temporary punctuality guarantee, would automatically issue refunds to customers who were signed up in the Northstar Service Guarantee program.
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Service Guarantees 23 a train was delayed) and smart card data to determine whether a customer's claim meets GO Transit's eligibility requirements under its punctuality guarantee.
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24 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices Most of these guarantees were contained in transit agency vision or mission statements rather than in official passenger charters or service guarantees. The language used to describe the transit agency's commitments was usually general and did not set specific thresholds or definitions as to what was meant.
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Service Guarantees 25 Seven transit agencies also responded with their own reasons for implementing a service guarantee, for example: • To set expectations for the organization -- both frontline and nonfrontline employees -- about what excellent customer service means; • To provide transparency to the public and be accountable for providing excellent service; and • The guarantee was really service standards to which the agency must adhere. Learning from Other Transit Agencies Transit agencies were also asked whether they researched other examples of service guarantees at other transit systems when developing their own service guarantees.
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26 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices Discontinuance of a Service Guarantee Transit agencies could indicate whether they previously had a service guarantee that was discontinued. Two transit agencies, Metro Transit and SEPTA, both previously had service guarantees and provided a mix of reasons for discontinuing their guarantees.
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Service Guarantees 27 Benefits, Challenges, and Lessons Learned Service guarantees may be providing benefits (and challenges) to transit agencies that are difficult to quantify directly.
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28 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and transparency practices Transit agencies also were able to provide their own words to describe the benefits of their service guarantees. Selected responses are paraphrased here: • Brought back previous customers.
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Service Guarantees 29 The financial expense of the guarantee was rated as not a challenge by over half of the respondents. This is likely because more than half of the survey respondents' guarantees did not promise any customer remuneration.
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