A New Twist on Satisfaction: A Holistic Approach
Client:
Challenge
The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) was charged by the Legislature to report on regional customer satisfaction (CS) throughout the Chicago area. Until that time, each Service Board (SB) providing transit services – CTA, Metra, and Pace – had conducted separate customer satisfaction studies. Consequently, RTA undertook a holistic approach to CS studies taking advantage of economies of scale: efficiencies gained using a common questionnaire, using consistent sampling methods, and applying for funding in a unified manner.
Initiative
The initial task involved developing a questionnaire using attributes common to all SBs while including additional attributes focused specifically on regional issues, e.g. availability of public transportation throughout the area, ease of making and paying for transfers, coordination of schedules, availability of parking for public transportation, etc. With a goal of agreeing on which questions should be considered common vs. unique, a draft questionnaire was scripted and tested in focus groups. The SBs and RTA worked together to agree on wording of questions that allowed riders to best understand what was being asked.
In the past, survey methods and sample sizes had varied among the SBs. Therefore, new survey approaches and sampling plans were designed to allow each SB to efficiently survey riders using a consistent statistical approach. Sampling protocols were provided to allow SBs to create flexible sampling plans based on their unique systems while
all sampling plans conformed to consistent statistical theory and logic. These plans allow for the optimal trade-off between obtaining the most survey data possible within available budget and statistical best practices.
Results
Funding was approved for this holistic approach starting in 2011 and the first wave of surveys will be conducted in Fall 2011 and at regular intervals going forward.
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