The Transit Ombudsman: Reform the form

Transit

The Transit Ombudsman: Reform the form

by Dennis Jaffe • February 12, 2010 11:33 am

Readers of The Transit Ombudsman want Metro to provide easier, more effective ways for us to report issues that need attention. Better service equals happier riders. And happier riders will more readily push federal, state and local governments to increase their funding of Metro.

Metro's comment form and its 20 "Incident type" options.

Reader Adam F proposed that riders be able to contact Customer Service from the mobile site. The Transit Ombudsman presented this to Metro's Information Technology (IT) staff. They see it has merit, and are adding this capability.

Erik W asked for an easy way to report trip planner issues, like these. Seattle's Metro Transit, Portland's TriMet and Twin Cities' Metro Transit all offer simple forms dedicated only to trip planner feedback.

But Metro requires you to fill out a detailed online form to report a website issue. It's more like a questionnaire. Finding the option for a website issue is like looking for bread in the grocery during the recent blizzard.

I raised the issue with Metro's IT staff. They agreed the layout needs improvement. They're tweaking the form. It'll be a bit easier to find where website issues are listed.

That's good, but there's a larger issue here.

For each of four areas—"Type," "Category," "Topic" and "Incident Type"—you must make one selection from a list of options. "Topic" has 11 choices. "Incident Type" has 20. In total, you go through 43 subcategories.

The intent is to track what we comment on. But this is just crazy. Choices for "Type" include Comment, Complaint, Question, Request and Suggestion. "Topic" includes Escalator, Elevator, Grounds and Facility. "Incident type" includes Dirty, Maintenance, Safety, Security, Non-service related issue and Other. Commendation appears twice.

Tracking the topics we comment on has value. But Metro should focus less on dissecting market research for 43 subtopics, and more on addressing what we're commenting about. Match.com's questionnaire asks me less than Metro's does!

Have you had specific issues with the trip planner that you didn't report because Metro doesn't provide an email address or a simple form dedicated only to the trip planner?

I still encourage you to make your voice heard by using Metro's online customer comment form. Here's one idea: ask them to simplify it. You can decide yourself whether that's a Comment, Complaint, Question, Request or Suggestion. Frankly, I don't know.

10 comments

Tags: customer service, WMATA

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Dennis Jaffe moved to Washington, DC from his home state of New Jersey in 1999. Elected to two terms on the board of education for his alma mater, River Dell Regional High School, and a former executive director of NJ Common Cause, Dennis has passionately championed openness in government and politics his whole life. He led successful campaigns to create the Metro Riders' Advisory Council, establish WMATA's public comment period, post WMATA's budget and Board meeting materials online, make the bus system map available online and in train stations, and improve MetroAccess service.

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Streamline all links leading to the comment form so everything is on one page

Have different forms for each type of comment/complaint so that you only have info on what is needed which are selected via a main contact page and then picking type of issue will lead to a page specifically for that issue.

Fix the site so that different parts of it don't contradict each other.

by kk on Feb 12, 2010 11:47 am • link • report

I had asked about this jumbled comment form back in November. This was Metro's response:

"Sorry for the delay in responding to your recent email regarding our web comment form. We sincerely try to make it as useful and friendly as possible. With so many riders and potential complaints, suggestions or comments, it becomes a little more challenging then a simple inquiry. The 7 specific drop down fields really help us sort the comment for better and accurate routing to either the Rail, Bus or Paratransit group.

We have been very successful in communicating with our riders and truly understand that this may sometimes seem a little burdensome, but I can assure you that the comment form has it's benefits. The drop down fields are simple and easy to select. The comment form field itself allows for minimum or maximum information input which customers really appreciate. "

So there you have it. The form is perfect; don't question Metro's methods.

by Adam L on Feb 12, 2010 11:55 am • link • report

I've definitely given up on submitting a comment to metro because of that absurd form. You really need to have some time and patience on hand to struggle through it.

In addition to reforming that system, metro should also just post email addresses for relevant departments. Currently the only on listed on the site is for the firm that handles advertising in the system.

There should be emails like maintenance@wmata.com, security@wmata.com, stationmanagers@wmata.com, trainoperators@wmata.com,smartcards@wmata.com,rideon@wmata.com,generalmanager@wmata.com,etc.

by mike on Feb 12, 2010 1:16 pm • link • report

METRO's IT staff, or their replacemenst, needs to do a better job. There are plenty of good IT people in the area who I bet would love working for METRO.

by KenF on Feb 12, 2010 4:01 pm • link • report

Send the full press releases in emails. Last night as Metro's website was down after releasing their plan for the Friday morning commute it dawned on me that they should have always been including the full text in their emails, as oppose to the title and link they currently have. Most of the press releases I receive from other organizations don't force you to visit the website to get the information.

by Joshua Davis on Feb 12, 2010 4:59 pm • link • report

Dennis, you mentioned that there's a larger issue here. I believe the larger issue is this--
Both in this post, and the previous Transit Ombudsman post you mention that you forwarded suggestions to IT people at Metro, and the IT people appear to say that these are good suggestions that should be followed up on. What somebody has to do though, is to keep track of these suggestions and how/if Metro responds to them. After a reasonable period of time has passed, look back to these posts and determine how many of the problems were fixed, suggestions were implemented, improvements were made. The optimist in me hopes that a majority of them would be done.
But remember these are Metro IT people we're talking about. These are the people who for years believed they could make more money selling bus maps for a buck and a half to people who figured out how to get one and made it a point to go somewhere deep in the bowels of Metro with their buck and a half to buy one, rather than put the maps online and let hundreds or thousands of people use them to figure out how to ride a bus where they wanted to go. These are people who want to spend thousands of dollars doing a "study" to find out how much they can make by selling data on bus arrival, despite the general consensus of reasonable people that the answer to that question is $0.
So I say keep up the good work Dennis, but please keep their feet to the fire and make sure that the suggestions are implemented sooner rather than later.

by rextrex on Feb 12, 2010 5:43 pm • link • report

the "category" drop down (the second one) should have "website" as a choice. the problems that i've had with the trip planner force me to choose "other," but honestly, don't you think that when you choose "other" your complaint/comment is just going into a black hole where no one will claim responsibility for it?

by IMGoph on Feb 12, 2010 7:51 pm • link • report

Accession handshaking is another problem with online complaints. You get an automated email that does not remind you what you wrote on the form. If you will ever want to follow up on your complaint, you must keep your own files -- which is easier said than done because the form has about a hundred itty bitty little fields.

Here's a funny story. Once upon a time, I sent in quite a few complaints about how the train's rearmost emergency intercom was routinely barricaded. That is an important issue, since the rearmost passenger might have a unique view of a developing situation, so I sweated over all the annoying dropdown lists. After each complaint, I got a thoughtful reply from a real person. After maybe about 50 such complaints, the person finally asked, But why don't you ever fill out the form properly so we might investigate your complaints?!

Long story short, the form did not work with Firefox. Day after day, I used Firefox and unwittingly submitted mostly blank forms. (Specifically: The form was coded with 'value=""' for nearly all of the select options.)

by Phil on Feb 12, 2010 10:19 pm • link • report

It would seem the average rider like myself would have trouble categorizing when , say, the actual cause was that someone distracted the trainman who hit the side in a turn which led to bumping another train lightly. You would not know the cause at all as a passenger waiting to enter the train. If I picked a description among 43 choices, would they maintain my erroneous category in the archives?

by Lee Richardson on Feb 13, 2010 12:06 pm • link • report

Thanks for passing on my suggestion about mobile access to Customer Service.

I do wish there were an easy way to report simple observations (e.g., train car too hot, station platform too dark, train door not working properly) separately from comments about insufficient service or employee behavior. Would make me more likely to report seemingly simple things.

by Adam F on Feb 13, 2010 3:15 pm • link • report