GO Customer Segmentation
Paula Edwards
Director,
Customer Care
December 3rd, 2014
GO Transit Today
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We serve 66 million passengers/year
• 250,000 passenger/weekday
GO connects with 17 municipal transit
systems
Rail:
• 250 weekday trips
• 67 locomotives; 586 bi-level coaches
• 7 lines; 80% are GO owned
Bus:
• 2,516 weekday trips
• 500 buses (including 116 Double
Decker buses)
78 stations/terminals
72,700 parking spaces
Mission: To deliver a customer-first transportation service
Turning Point for Customer Service
• 88% train on-time performance in 2008/09
• Negative public and customer perception
• Focus on operations and safety often compromised customer service
• Lack of customer engagement
• Led to a 3 year Customer
Service Strategy that was
approved in 2009 and our
Passenger Charter
Passenger Charter Promises
1.
We will do our best to be on time
2.
3.
4.
5.
We will always take your safety seriously
We will keep you in the know
We will make your experience
comfortable
We will help you quickly and courteously
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The voice of our customers help us keep
our promises
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Invested in Voice of the Customer program to engage customers, listen to
and act on their feedback
•
Launched on online panel to gather insights easily and in a cost effective
way
•
Engaged the organization to incorporate customer insights into planning
and decision making
•
Close feedback with customers – “You spoke, we listened”
Customer Insights Inform Training
Customer Service Employee
Training Roadmap
Timelines
2014+
2014 –
2013
Understanding Our Customers
• Usage and Attitude (Non-Users)
• Mystery Shopping
• Customer Experience Mapping
2013 –
2011
• GO Customer Segmentation
20112010
• Passenger Charter Focus Groups
GO Customer Segmentation
• In 2012, we completed a market segmentation study to better
understand our customers and ultimately improve how we
communicate and serve them.
• From this research we uncovered 7 distinct personas:
“happy”
“businessman”
“sensitive”
“student”
“hip/cool”
“highly dissatisfied”
“social”
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Our Customer Segments
“I like GO – I feel privileged that I don’t have to take
local transit like my friends. However, it would be
really helpful if there was more service. ”
“I really enjoy my time on
GO as it helps me spend
time with my buddies.”
“I really like GO as it is clean,
reliable and environmentally
friendly. However, I find that
service does not cover my
area well or frequently
enough.”
Student rider
Social rider
9%
10%
Hip rider
26%
“I absolutely love GO as it gives me
time to be all by myself allowing me
to decompress and feel relaxed.”
9%
Highly dissatisfied
“I really don’t have many rider
positive things to say about
GO other than that I like the
free parking. I find it crowded,
expensive, boring and
frequently delayed.”
Happy rider
Sensitive rider
18%
11%
18%
Working rider
“GO helps me avoid traffic jams
which I hate. However, I’m not the
biggest fan of GO as I find it
crowded and many fellow
passengers not courteous.”
“I have a pretty positive experience on GO and
being a businessman, it helps me catch up
with work during my daily commute. However,
I would appreciate better seat availability.”
How We’ve Been Applying Segmentation
• The personas have been shared across the organization and have
been applied in many different ways:
– Improving Research Processes and insights
– Training Employees
– Launching New Service
– Designing Products
– Launching New Programs
– Targeting Marketing Campaigns
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Improving Research Processes
• Segmentation has been applied to our main research methodologies
• We’ve been able to determine the segment for each of our 7,000
members of Let GO Know.
• As well, we make sure research findings are as representative as
possible.
– For instance, every focus groups has to have a mix of segments
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Training Employees
• Customer segments are foundational and have been
embedded into employee training.
• Employees are shown techniques on how to spot
personas, anticipate needs, and communicate.
Creating an easy and
delightful experience
• Given a pocket-sized handbook that they could use in
their day to day role.
• Staff saying the personas give a “new perspective” and
they now “have a greater understanding of passenger
needs.”
• Since the program has launched our commendations have increased
by 21%.
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Designing Products – GO Mobile Website
• Insights from customer segments were used to map the user
experience and ensure that needs were met at key points in the
journey.
• For example, knowing the behaviours and needs for 4 segments led us
to include pathways for special events planning, commenting to GO
directly, and posting on social media.
Planning Needs
Post-Trip Needs
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Launching New Programs - Quiet Zone
• When we launched a Quiet Zone onboard our trains we knew that we
were going to delight all by one segment of our riders
• Feedback from our “social” rider during the pilot helped us make
refinements for the full system rollout
33%
Of ‘social riders’ wanted
to keep the Quiet Zone
during the pilot
48%
Of ‘social riders’ wanted
to keep the Quiet Zone
during the full rollout
Overall, 82% of all customers love the Quiet Zone
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Targeting Marketing Campaigns
• Created a campaign to increase awareness and
usage of our online tools
• Identified 3 segments with low usage and developed
targeted approach
• Results:
• 1,300 more On the GO email subscribers (and
over 10,000 since launch)
• 75% increase in use of GO Tracker that has
been maintained since launch
• 7 point improvement in customer satisfaction
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Progress so far
Year to Date
2009
2014*
Change
Satisfied with GO Transit
59%
84%
+25 pts
Recommend GO to a friend or colleague
63%
84%
+21 pts
Number of Customer Commendations**
623
1,533
+146%
* Results are based on the Fall customer satisfaction survey
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Thank you
www.gotransit.com