1. Peer Benchmarking: Complaint Processes
Transportation Professionals Advisory Committee
May 11, 2017
Good Afternoon TPAC Members and guest.
In FY 2015, McCloud Transportation and Associates conducted a Comprehensive Operational Review of Customer Services.
As a part of the review it was recommended that we review our peer transit systems complaints processes to determine if changes should be made
to our current environment.
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2. Peers Reviewed Foothill Transit LA Metro Metrolink OCTA/ OCTA Access
WMATA/ Metro Access
We reviewed the following peer agencies to compare our processes:
Foothill Transit
LA Metro
Metrolink
OCTA/ Access
WMATA/ Metro Access
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3. Metrics Access Metrolink OCTA/ Access Foothill WMATA/ Access LA Metro
Avg Monthly Tickets
1,500
1,000
1,200
400
2,100
Complaints per 1K/100K*
4.1
42.1*
4.5
16.5*
4.71
4.61
Top Type
1.Procedure
2. Conduct
3. Booking
1. TVM
2. OTP
3. Policy
1. Pass by
3. Routing
1. OTP
2. Courtesy 3.Mechanical
1.OTP
2.Scheduling
3. Conduct
2. Pass by & Fare/
3. Operator Discourtesy
Intake
Contractor
Internal
I’ve provided each of you with a spreadsheet, which indicates all of the areas that were compared; however, my presentation will only outline those areas with mixed or varied responses. We can address any areas not indicated here during the question and answer period.
Reading from left to right, the top rows identify the agency and the far left columns identify the areas measured.
When measuring the number to tickets, meaning commendations and complaints
each agency receives over 1,000 tickets, with the exception of 400 and LA Metro 2,100
The next line represents complaints per 1,000 or 100,000. The asterisk represents complaints by 100,000, being Metrolink and Foothill. Foothill has 16.5 complaints per one hundred thousand, and Metrolink has over 40 complaints, per one hundred thousand
All the other agencies have just under 5 complaints per 1,000.
Next, when comparing the Top 3 complaints across the board
OTP is consistently # 1 and Procedure #2.
In regards to the intake of complaints, there is an even split of
Internal intake and
contracted call centers receiving the complaint.
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4. Saleforce/ Some automation
Metrics
Access
Metrolink
OCTA/ Access
Foothill
WMATA/ Access
LA Metro
Response Timeframe
14 days
3 – 5 days
5 days
30-45 days
Quality Assurance
Yes
CRM Systems/ Automation
Custom/ Manual
Saleforce/ Some automation
Custom/ Automation
TransTrack/ Manual
Trapeze/ Manual
Who determines the staff thresholds
Agency
Contractor
The majority of agencies respond to customers within 14 days; however,
Foothill responds within 3 to 5 days
WMATA 5
And……. With Metro having the longest response period of 30 to 45 days
Everyone has quality assurance methodology
Whereas, trending reports are viewed on a monthly or quarterly basis to identify infractions and follow up for accountability of the contractor
The Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) systems used to track customer information are a split between
custom and off the shelf solutions
Finally, the majority of the complaint thresholds for staff infractions are dictated by the agency,
with the exception of Foothill and Metro……the contractors dictate the threshold.
However, each agency reserves the right to request that any said staff not work on the contract.

5. COR Findings Discontinue post cards acknowledging complaint
Increase intake automation to eliminate redundancies
Contractors should be accountable for investigations
Develop standardized response letters
Assign less staff to complaints
Analyze data
The COR and this benchmarking project, identified the following findings:
First, we were sending post cards to every customer who filed a complaint, and therefore recommended that we discontinue that practice.
Also our complaints process was very manual, therefore it was recommended that we increase the automation in our CRM system to intake and assign complaints,
with the ability to auto-close complaints,
as the process was very manual.
The automation included updates to our website for a web form to file complaints to reduce the call volume.
All complaints were investigated by Access internally, and the recommendation was for accountability of our contractors to investigate their own complaints
It was also recommended that we develop some standardization to our response letters
Additionally, we had 6 representatives dedicated to complaints and our peer agencies had 1 to 2. With the exception of WMATA….there were multiple staff touches to the intake, response, and for escalated complaints.
Finally, they recommended that we provide standardized reporting to Operations to analyze the complaints data and follow up with our contractors
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6. Improvements to Processes
Implemented automation in CRM system and website
Re-aligned investigations to contractors
Implemented quality assurance audits
Provide trending repots to Operations
Developed standardization for response letters
Reduce complaint staff from 6 to 3
Based on the recommendations we developed automation in Rider 360 to assign and auto-close complaints, which resulted in less processing time.
Subsequently, our contractors are now responsible to investigate complaints
Access’ Internal customer relations staff responds to complaints, ensure providers completing investigations in a timely manner, conducts quality assurance audits, and provides Operations with trending reports
We implemented some standardization to our letters; the opening, closing and provided some direction of consistent language in our responses.
Finally, we reduced our complaint staff from 6 to 3.
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7. Complaints Performance
This chart represents our performance for commendations and complaints per 1,000 trips.
For commendations……
In FY15, were received 1.6 commendations per 1,000 trips
We improved in 2.8 commendations per 1,000 trips
At FY17 To date, we are trending well at 1.9 commendations per 1,000 trips
Our threshold for complaints is not to exceed 4.5 complaints per 1,000 trips
In FY15, we received 4 complaints per 1,000 trips
In FY16, as we noticed our commendations increased, our complaints decreased to 3.4 per 1,000 trips over the previous year.
FY17 To date we are a bit up over the previous year at 3.7….and we hope that we see a decline and not exceed FY16.
This concludes my presentation and I will be happy to entertain questions at this time.