Q&A with FTA's James Simpson

TARC provides a Ride to Safety

Ask any public transportation general manager what is most important in the day-to-day workings of the agency, and the answer invariably comes back as “customer service.”

To showcase the significance of customer service to the industry – and to honor the front-line public transit employees charged with providing this service, each year APTA hosts several customer service competitions.   Following in the footsteps of APTA’s two current successful customer service events, the Bus Customer Service Challenge and the Call Center Challenge, next year APTA will introduce its newest competition – the Rail Customer Service Challenge – to be held as part of the International Rail Rodeo.  Station managers will be put to the test to see who stands supreme in the field of customer service.

All three of these competitions will crown the public transportation industry’s best in customer service in their respective fields.  Participants face a panel of judges, industry professionals, who will present a series of real-life scenarios and questions.  They will then judge the contestants on a number of criteria, including professionalism, overall customer service attitude, and the ability to adequately resolve the issues presented.  In addition, how contestants think on their feet and solve problems quickly will also be counted in the scoring, with the winner chosen based on the total number of points assessed. 

The Bus Customer Service Challenge, the oldest of APTA’s customer service competitions that honors bus operators for their outstanding customer service, is held each year as part of the International Bus Roadeo competition. 

In 2008, because of the success of the Bus Customer Service Challenge, APTA introduced the Call Center Customer Service Challenge.  This competition tests the talents of the best transit telephone customer service representatives from across North America as they face a series of real-life customer information call scenarios. A panel of industry experts judge the contestants on how they resolve each call.

Look for more information on each of these customer service events soon.

« Previous Article

Return to Top | Return to Main

Next Article »