Unsuck DC Metro: $150,000 Per Year to Hear the Obvious?

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

$150,000 Per Year to Hear the Obvious?

From an anonymous reader:

The other evening, I received a phone call at home from a marketing company. I was about to tell the caller to take me off her list, but my attitude changed when she said she wanted to ask me some questions about Metro.

"Really? Sure, I'll share my opinions!" I said.

And so it began.

The survey lasted about 20 minutes.

She started with some basic questions, asking me how long I've been using Metro, how many times a week, etc. Then, I was asked to rate almost everything from the escalators to the employees' level of customer service to the cleanliness of the Metro cars on a scale of one to seven.

Finally, I was asked if I would be willing to be contacted again to share my views. I said yes, but frankly how much more complaining do they need to hear from the riders until they get it?

At the end of the call, I asked her some questions of my own, but unfortunately she couldn't provide any answers.

So, I decided to email my questions directly to WMATA.

We forwarded the questions and got answers. Here they are:

1) Who at WMATA authorized WB&A to do this survey?
Contract was awarded in FY 07, three year base with two option years. Contract was approved by the Board of Directors.

2) How much is WMATA paying this company?
FY11 budget is $148,000.00

3) Why would WMATA pay a private company to conduct this survey when riders already share their concerns and complaints with WMATA by email and phone?
The survey consists of on-going tracking of customer satisfaction among a representative sample of Metro’s ridership. The survey is sampled by mode to include riders from all signatory jurisdictions. The survey consists of 200 interviews per month, rolled up to 600 interviews per quarter, rolled up to 2400 interviews per year; this sample allows for reliable measurement across all three time periods.

4)Why a scale of 1-7?
Because research has demonstrated that the 7 point Lickert scale allows enough gradation for respondents to provide accurate measurement of their impressions, without too much subjective variance within the ranges. In other words, there’s more consistency in three different people rating an attribute at “5,” than can be achieved with a 10 point scale.

Remember the "mystery riders" program?

So, by all means, leave your feedback for WMATA so they don't keep spending your money on surveys!

Other items:
The mysterious anti-loitering device at Gallery Place (NBC4)
That this is "news" is a major reason our public transport sucks (WaPo)

Comments (38)

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+4 Vote up Vote down

Ever and Anon · 760 weeks ago

How do I get on their call list? Do they accept negative numbers in thier Lickert scale rating? mmwahahahaha ;-D

+4 Vote up Vote down

anonymous · 760 weeks ago

Dear Metro.

Quit wasting my F'n money. Quit taking 4 months to fix a short escalator at federal Triangle. Quit with the 20 minute headways between trains at night. Quit SUCKING.

Signed,
A dependent rider.

3 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

+1 Vote up Vote down

anon · 759 weeks ago

your a moron the escalators are not being fixed they are being rebuilt big defference and they were out for 10 weeks each not 4 months.

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anonymous · 758 weeks ago

Uhhh...I'm not sure which station the respondent is talking about. But, I watched as one of these short escalators was taken out of service and then waited and waited and waited. The last one was out of service from February 2010 until August 2010. That's six months. I honestly don't care if they're rebuilding them or repairing them. They only worked on this specific set of stairs perhaps once or twice a week and were gone the vast majority of the day. I'm sorry but in what universe is this acceptable???

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anon · 756 weeks ago

not true there are times when it may take a bit longer but never six months not even close. now if you are talking about escalators that metro techs are working on maybe but not the escalators being rebuilt by the contactors.

+3 Vote up Vote down

Matthew · 760 weeks ago

Wait a second here Unsuck. We complain a lot about WMATA not listening to the riders and this is a CLEAR case where they are at least trying. While people do share their complaints and concerns about Metro very few people will ever share their satisfaction with the service (all two people out there). Basically, if Metro can focus in on the specific areas of dissatisfaction they have the opportunity to improve very specific/general areas of dissatisfaction. Yeah the price tag is something to look at and yeah Metro may not even pay attention to it but let’s give them a chance to try something new before we totally destroy them for it.

5 replies · active 760 weeks ago

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unsuckdcmetro 92p · 760 weeks ago

I'm curious, what do you think might be an example of something that would be revealed in a survey like this that a) WMATA doesn't know about and B) Is something they can fix?

Seems to me the issues are pretty well documented, but I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

+5 Vote up Vote down

Ever and Anon · 760 weeks ago

I have received their written survey forms (those yellow ones) from time to time. It never asks the questions I feel need addressed. It is as if they are afraid to ask the real questions and, instead, want some lame number ranking on vague "safe" items. Metro knows what is wrong. Why Metro does not do anything about it is the mystery to me. Perhaps they are all busy texting each other about the latest french fry incident! ;D

+2 Vote up Vote down

Kay · 760 weeks ago

What you get from conducting a survey this way is actual, solid, reportable data. The people who complain about things are a self-selecting group and not a representative selection of transit users. Also, many more people have shitty commutes than actually take to wmata's website and try to get their attention to complain about it. And there might, theoretically, be a good employee or a good commute somewhere in the system that they also never hear about, some hidden best practice.

So yeah, I don't begrudge them doing proper surveying, if they're doing it right. It's a valuable tool for most organizations. And frankly, I've worked for smaller orgs than WMATA who pay more than that for survey contracts.

-1 Vote up Vote down

Matthew · 760 weeks ago

Kay hit everything I was trying to with my original post.

+2 Vote up Vote down

unsuckdcmetro 92p · 760 weeks ago

Here's some actual, solid, reportable data they already have and are paying someone to post: http://wmata.com/rail/disruption_reports/archived...

0 Vote up Vote down

Randy · 760 weeks ago

So 0.0012% of Metro's riders is a "representative sample of Metro’s ridership"?

+1 Vote up Vote down

Randy · 760 weeks ago

So .0012% of Metro riders is a "representative sample of Metro’s ridership"? (Based conservatively on last years numbers at 200,000,000 riders.)

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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yatesc · 760 weeks ago

Well, each daily commuter accounts for ~500 rides a year, so the percentage is probably a higher than that. Call it 0.12% :)

+3 Vote up Vote down

@nevermindtheend · 760 weeks ago

$150,000 per year is practically nothing. Tracking customer satisfaction is important, and no, you don't get a representative picture of what customers think of the system by just looking at complaints/commendations. Some people will call/write in to complain about even the best system, and some people won't complain no matter how bad it gets. Sometimes you just have to ask people.

Not sure why you're complaining about this.

+4 Vote up Vote down

Steve Richards · 760 weeks ago

When you start thinking 150,000 is not a lot of money, you're on a slippery slope. It is a lot of money. Plus it is being used in a climate of fare hike after fare hike after fare hike. Most surveys are used to gently nudge an organization in a better direction with the assumption that things are more or less OK. If you think WMATA can't come up with a better way to use $150,000, you must not be riding the same system.

Take today for example. For $150,000 WMATA probably could have hired a decently talented tech person so that Smartbenefits worked on a crucial day. Or perhaps someone that would have realized the GAPING security hole in their e-alerts systems.

Badly spent money here, plain and simple.

+2 Vote up Vote down

Dubious · 760 weeks ago

I think this is showing an ignorance of how ALL companies get user satisfaction information and how much people spend on such things. In general, the forms on WMATA.com are going to get a disproportionate amount of negative comments. This isn't a bad thing and it's a shame WMATA doesn't treat it like a customer support queue and tracking system, but it's not an accurate representation of overall customer satisfaction.

I mean, 148K is a lot to an individual, but that works out to just over 12K a month. That means Metro has contracted for maybe 3 dedicated survey takers to try to sample their regular ridership and probably more like 2 plus the costs of equipment. If anything, it would be nice if they DOUBLED that amount at a minimum. Just sayin'. Tag Metro for their benefits-shanking of that man with cancer, not for a normal cost of doing business that shows that everyone wants good customer service but have no idea what that entails.

+6 Vote up Vote down

Guest · 760 weeks ago

It's not that WMATA doesn't listen to customers, it's that they DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!

+1 Vote up Vote down

A rider · 760 weeks ago

Dear Metro:
Run your trains and buses on a schedule.
Do you really need to be told that?
The end
A rider

+1 Vote up Vote down

Anon · 760 weeks ago

Metro defenders:

Metro is spending a $750,000 on this lunacy. Is that enough for you to consider it waste?

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Matthew · 760 weeks ago

No. Customer satisfaction surveys are vital.

+3 Vote up Vote down

anon · 760 weeks ago

As someone who works in the research field, I applaud Metro's efforts to conduct a representative survey of its ridership. I would be curious to know more about their sampling techniques. $150,000 is not an exorbitant amount to pay a consulting company to do telephone surveys.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ever and Anon · 760 weeks ago

True but I am now paying $204 a month to ride the Metro Nightmare. I would think my comments should have some validity. I've not been contacted for a survey yet have contacted them (and my congressional reps) many times. I suppose they don't want to hear my thoughts...

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Godsend Conspirator · 760 weeks ago

Why is it every time I shave, I seem to miss a few hairs!!??

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ever and Anon · 760 weeks ago

Ya got a metro brand razor perhaps?

+2 Vote up Vote down

Metro User · 760 weeks ago

I suspect that it may be less expensive to purchase survey results from other train systems in the US to find out what is important to customers and to meet those goals. I'm sure that the NYC system has done these surveys and made changes accordingly and it shows in customer satisfaction. Mirroring success has proven to be a good and cost effective way to do business and is not a new concept. Metro should also spend that money to survey their employess and contract out the personnel performance reviews to get an unbias view on how their management is running (or not running) the system.

But, sitting around saying "they should" or "they shouldn't" isn't going to help at all. If you or I don't like the way the system is then send in the e-mails, respond to survey questions, or find alternative transportation and stop financially supporting something that doesn't meet your needs. And you can always write your government representation to let them know your concerns about public transportation difficulties.

4 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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anonnononononny · 760 weeks ago

"I suspect that it may be less expensive to purchase survey results from other train systems in the US to find out what is important to customers and to meet those goals."

That is insanely stupid. Can you imagine if Metro took the polling data from OTHER cities and used it to shape its policy? DC is not like other cities, and certainly what works in one area isn't necessarily going to work everywhere else. That's why you need to get data in the same area in which the transit system exists.

I mean, with these phone surveys at least Metro gets some actionable data; even if they don't use it properly, it's still legit data from their own customers. Why on earth would they use data from someone else's customers? If they did that, not only would they have wasted time and a lot of money they'd wind up with a whole lot of useless data.

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Metro User · 760 weeks ago

"Insanely stupid"? How different can they be? MTA has working escalators. MTA has a police force. MTA has trains that get from point A to point B. MTA charges people to ride. WMATA has issues with things that EVERY system has in place without the same problems. I can understand a survey that has a goal of setting the DC system apart from the others, but it seems to just be trying to figure out the basics of how to operate a public transit system. When/if they get that right would be the time to ask the customers what they think.

-4 Vote up Vote down

Daniel · 760 weeks ago

This isn't NYC and Metro ain't the MTA... Different system, different market... I'm happy to allow Metro to listen to their customers in more objective ways than this blog of self selecting blog followers. I mean, just by following this, we are glass half empty people, deciding to what degree Metro will suck today. There are riders who think Metro is fine -- it is what it is... satisfaction has to do with perception opf value and expectations. I don't expect much from a commute that costs less than my morning Starbuck's.

+1 Vote up Vote down

Ever and Anon · 760 weeks ago

My morning Starbucks, if I did it, would cost $2/ 5 days a week/ 4 weeks a month. My Metro is $204 a month. I have the right and DO expect more from Metro than I ever would from Starbucks. My glass is half empty because Metro causes it to be half empty. My nature tendenciy is to see my glass half full. It is hard to maintain optimism with the continual screw-ups that should not even be happening (e.g., metro operators texting while driving, bus drivers beating up customers, sleeping on the job, need I go on?)

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Marie · 760 weeks ago

My question is what are these people saying on these surveys? Based on recent history I imagine. . .

"Where do you feel Metro needs the greatest improvement?"

"In fares of course. We absolutely are not paying enough. I want to see them raise fares and decrease service."

+1 Vote up Vote down

LoxyBrown · 760 weeks ago

I suggest they create an online survey through their metro opens doors site. If it's easier for them to track surveys by smart card rather than anonymously, fine by me. But yeah, spending $150k on a phone survey is horse poo.

-1 Vote up Vote down

@make_lemons · 760 weeks ago

hmmmmm. did we have to give a phone number when we registered (or re-registered) our SmarTrip cards online?? Cause I got a call from an unknown 800# the other night.... but i didn't answer it because I didn't recognize the #....

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anonymous · 760 weeks ago

The problem I have with this the Board approving something like this is that it's yet another sign they don't take Metro on a regular basis. You'd only have to ride a week to come up with a pretty good list of things that need to be looked at.

Out of touch Board, dumb spending.

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Rusty · 760 weeks ago

I work one block from Metro headquarters. If they want, I'll come over on my lunch break, even an extended lunch break, and tell them everything that is wrong with the system. And it won't cost Metro a dime.

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horseydeucey · 760 weeks ago

I was called for a WMATA survey last year (or last, last year-- can't remember). What I do remember is that the survey was a miserable mess. I can recall a line of questioning similar to; "What affect do the message boards in the station have in your decision to ride Metro?" to which I would answer with a "Well, on the one hand I want to say none since I have no choice but to ride Metro, and on the other hand, I would like less information about escalator and elevator outages across the whole system since I only use two stations in one trip. I think the information cycle on the message boards could be better spent letting me know when the next train will arrive instead of a seemingly endless stream of information I can do absolutely nothing with. But I like the concept of the message boards, and I think they're an improvement at least."
"Sir, please respond with a numerical value between one and five."
That's how the whole frustrating survey went for me.
Worthless.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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NoVARider · 758 weeks ago

Honestly, to say that Metro riders feel exhausted with the system. We've had how many fare hikes within a 2 month span alone this summer? I've emailed and emailed the folks at Metro Opens Doors and they do respond. However, they do nothing but basically say 'We regret the inconvenience' using some different verbiage. I'll say here what I said to them, if Metro truly regretted the inconvenience, they would have shown some signs of improvement to warrant their combination of cuts in service and ridiculous rate hikes. The last time I recall we had a similarly ridiculous rate hike was around the time they had to go to a Smartcard only system of paying for parking, largely because the folks they hired to collect payment were robbing them blind. What did we hear from Metro at the time, "We realize that making our riders bear the brunt of this unfortunate incident but..(insert excuse for making riders suck it up one more time while they take more money give their riders poorer service...if that's even possible at this point)" I echo the other posters here, if there was ANY evidence that Metro was taking notes and doing something about what's wrong with the system, I think you'd find a lot more riders a lot more forgiving. Sadly...this isn't the case.

-1 Vote up Vote down

PStone · 750 weeks ago

I just did the math and this had to be the best Xmas gift possible for whoever won the contract...200 surveys per month = 50 per week = 10 per night, which means my roommate and I could bang this job out in a hour and half when we got home from work every night and make 75k a piece..lol, it is a waste of money considering so many problems are known to exist and just get ignored/handled poorly