After years of duly focusing on safety, the Toronto Transit Commission is being told it’s time to spend some money on customer service.
A report released Monday morning by the TTC’s “customer service advisory panel” makes 78 recommendations on how to do that, everything from creating a “culture of customer service” to doing away with hand written signs at collector booths.
The top priority, says panel chair Steve O’Brien, should be the creation of a “Chief Customer Service Officer” who would be a point person for improving the transit experience.
“The new focus on customer service is overdue,” states the report. “The implementation of many [if not most] of the recommendations contained in this report will require significant operating or capital expenditures and workforce increases.”
Other suggestions:
– Acknowledge children
– Create streetcar route maps similar to what exist on subways
– Information kiosks in busy stations like Bloor and Eglinton
– Expand the “˜station manager’ program that the TTC is piloting this fall across the system
– Screens at station entrances that highlight delays across the system so that customers can make informed decisions before paying the fare
– TTC install touch screen information kiosks available in multiple languages in all stations
– “Sorry, Bus Full” signs that explain why a driver could not stop
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