Best Foot Forward: Training Front Line Personnel to Provide Quality Customer Service NOVEMBER 2003 Katherine Brower Associate Director Ellyn Shannon Transportation Planner Karyl Berger Research Associate Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA 347 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge the professional and courteous customer assistance provided to them by personnel at all the transportation agencies contacted during the preparation of this report. This report has been a work in progress for many months and there are many people the authors would like to recognize for their time, assistance and perseverance in obtaining and sharing volumes of information with us. At the LIRR, special thanks go to Director of Government Affairs Janet Lewis who helped coordinate meetings and garnered the information from a variety of departments and personnel. Also at the LIRR, we would like to thank: Robert Cividanes, Donald Corkery, James Coumatos, Dr. John Diekman, Nathaniel Ham, Raymond P. Kenny, Rosanne Neville, Chris Papandreou, William E. Sellerberg and Fred Wedley. Metro-North staff were instrumental in pulling together a mountain of information and we want to acknowledge and thank: Margarita Almonte, Delana Glenn, Gus Meyers, George Okvat, Mario Riccobon, John Roberto, Mark Stoessner, Tom Tendy and Diana Tucker. The authors would also like to specially thank Lois Tendler, NYC Transit director of Government and Community Relations and Deborah Hall-Moore, Assistant director of Government and Community Relations. Without them, we would have never been able to complete this report. Also at NYC Transit, we would like to thank: Ralph Agritelley, Fred Benjamin, Rocco Cortese, Nathaniel Ford, Termaine Garden, John Gaul, Daniel Girardi, Anthony Giudice, John Grass, Kevin Hyland, Christopher Lake, Robert Newhouser, Louis Nicosia, Millard Seay, Barbara Spencer, Jennifer Sinclair and Steve Vidal. At Long Island Bus, we are truly grateful for help from James Campbell, Gail Chandler, Patricia Ibarguan, Olga Jiminez, Richard Motycka, Jane Perlson, Frank Ryan and Neil Yellin. The authors contacted a number of transit agencies around the country for this report. We greatly appreciate their efforts in providing information to us. Our thanks go to Jennifer Boubal, and Mary Joplin at Continental Airlines, Steve Kiejst and Rick Mariani at New Jersey Transit, Augustine Serio at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s PATH Division, Joe Gallagher at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Cynthia Gannaway at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), Mary Sulmers and Dean Orbeck at the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Terry Adelman and Sadie Williams at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Maggie Lynch and Mark Lovett at San Francisco’s Municipal Railway (MUNI) and Kevin Desmond and Lynne Cunningham at Pierce Transit in Tacoma, Washington. Special thanks go to PCAC Executive Director Beverly Dolinsky for sharing her knowledge, insights, support and editorial assistance. The authors would also like to thank PCAC Administrative Assistant Mary Whaley for her assistance and good humor in preparing the draft. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY........................................................................................ i - xiii INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................... 1 STUDY DESCRIPTION.......................................................................................... 2 TICKET CLERKS/STATION AGENTS ................................................................... 5 Long Island Rail Road………………………..… ............................................ 5 Metro-North Railroad……………………....................................................... 11 New York City Transit ................................................................................. 16 CUSTOMER SERVICE/TRAVEL INFORMATION REPRESENTATIVES............................................................................................. 23 Long Island Rail Road................................................................................. 23 Metro-North Railroad .................................................................................. 27 New York City Transit ................................................................................. 32 Long Island Bus.......................................................................................... 36 RAILROAD AND SUBWAY CONDUCTORS ......................................................... 40 Long Island Rail Road................................................................................. 40 Metro-North Railroad .................................................................................. 49 New York City Transit ................................................................................. 56 BUS OPERATORS ................................................................................................ 64 Long Island Bus.......................................................................................... 64 New York City Transit ................................................................................. 70 A COMPARISON OF MTA FRONT LINE PERSONNEL CUSTOMER SERVICE PRACTICES .......................................................................................................... 79 Ticket Clerks/Station Agents ....................................................................... 80 Customer Service/Travel Information .......................................................... 84 Conductors ................................................................................................. 88 Bus Operators ............................................................................................ 95 INNOVATIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING AT U.S. TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES ............................................................................................................ 99 National Transportation Organizations ........................................................ 99 U.S Transportation Agencies.......................................................................101 RECOMMENDATIONS ..........................................................................................107 MTA ...........................................................................................................108 MTA Operating Agencies ............................................................................113 APPENDIX A Overview of MTA Operating Agencies .....................................................112 APPENDIX B Agency Specific Recommendations ........................................................115 APPENDIX C Glossary of Terms ....................................................................................124 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Effective communication and excellent customer service are paramount to running a successful transportation system. In fact, a recent report by the Public Agenda found that forty-six percent of people interviewed had walked out of a business in the past year due to bad customer service.1 Bad customer service results in lost business. This can translate into lost ridership in the transportation industry. Front line employees, such as ticket clerks/station service agents, travel information representatives, conductors and bus operators, provide a service, which necessitates customer communication and interaction yet employees don’t always remember that this is an important aspect of their role. Front line employees, knowingly or unknowingly, function as transportation agency “ambassadors” and strongly influence riders’ perception and experience. Public perception about transportation service plays a key role in transportation use. Effective communication and customer sensitivity require special employee skills and attitudes. Ensuring that employees are adequately prepared to fulfill their responsibilities is a recurrent process that begins during the hiring phase and continues through the initial training, monitoring and evaluation by management as well as in the ongoing provision of refresher training. Achieving excellent transportation customer service also requires effective communication among the employees themselves, which is grounded in the overall management philosophy, the handling of day-to-day operations and the use of communication technology. The Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC)2 has long expressed the need for consistent, high quality customer service. The PCAC’s 1984 report on this topic, Passenger Relations Training Programs, Disciplinary Procedures and Incentive Programs: A Comparison of MTA Affiliates to Public Transit Agencies Around the United States, recommended that the MTA implement a number of measures to improve training, disciplinary and reward programs for front line employees. Recommendations for customer service training included the need for knowledgeable and trained instructors, continued managerial and supervisory staff support and special skills workshops. 1 Public Agenda (2002) Aggravating Circumstances: A Status Report on Rudeness in America. 2 The PCAC is the coordinating body and funding mechanism for the three councils created by the New York State Legislature in 1981: the Long Island Rail Road Commuter’s Council (LIRRCC); the Metro-North Railroad Commuter Council (MNRCC); and the New York City Transit Riders Council (NYCTRC). The Councils were created to give