Capital Metro

Customer Satisfaction Advisory Committee

Minutes for May 2005

DATE: May 3, 2005

TIME: 6:00 p.m.

LOCATION: 323 Congress

Members: Rene Barrera, Colleen Stoll, B.J. Taylor, Alfredo Ojeda, Barbara Espinoza, and John Taylor

Associates: Joseph Thornton, Jerry Balaka, and Glenna Balch

Staff: Ivonne Gibbs, Rick L’Amie, Jane Schroter, and Allen Walker

I. The meeting was called to order at 6:05 pm by Rene Barrera and followed by introductions of members and those present. Mr. Barrera personally welcomed Barbara Espinoza as a new member.

II. Mrs. Stoll moved to approve the minutes for April’s meeting. Mr. Ojeda seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion was carried out for the approval of April’s minutes.

III. Mr. Barrera tabled some issues that were discussed during the previous meeting because the members who were concerned about them were not present. The other issues: Mr. Hausmann’s certificate, the colors of the proposed UT bus stop signage, incorrect information at the 37^th and Guadalupe bus stop sign, signage confusion at 37^th and Guadalupe, signage confusion at Highland Mall and Westgate Malls, and Mr. Chapa’s CSAC application were addressed by Mr. Walker,. In reference to Mr. Hausmann’s certificate, Mr. Walker reported it was ready, and Mr. Barrera approved the certificate. In respect to the colors of the UT bus stop signage, Mr. Walker informed the group that the marketing group is in contact with UT regarding this issue. He also mentioned that the misinformation on the 37^th and Guadalupe bus stop will be corrected as of the May 29^th service change. Mr. Walker also reported that the signage confusion at Highland Mall and Westgate Mall was currently being evaluated. Highland Mall’s signage, in particular, will be a testing site this summer for new signage. Lastly, he reported that Mr. Chapa’s application for CSAC membership had been mailed out the day following April’s CSAC meeting.

Mr. Barrera reported that on Monday he drove around the bus route 100 to the Airport and reviewed the bus stop signs. The signs looked really nice, and at the time he was reviewing them (2:30 & 3:30 p.m.) he saw passengers waiting for the bus. In addition, he shared that there is an opportunity for having Dillo information and other Capital Metro special service at the Convention of Business Bureau and at the Austin Duck Tours location because it would be a direct point of contact with tourists.

IV. The subcommittee reports were tabled for a later time. The “Membership” item on the agenda was removed and replaced with “Dillo Subcommittee”. Mr. Thornton inquired about CSAC membership. Mr. Barrera responded that there are CSAC placards on the buses and brochures with CSAC literature are pending approval.

Mr. Barrera asked Ms. Balch, a new visitor, how she heard about CSAC. Ms. Balch conveyed that she initially complained about too many bus detours for special events in the City of Austin, and that as a result she was referred to CSAC. Mr. Barrera said that about two months ago there was a CSAC meeting in which this issue was addressed with Capital Metro’s planners. He also added that this was a good time to get an update in a future CSAC meeting on the status of the analysis conducted by the planners. He concurred with Ms. Balch that there should be a structured alternative plan whenever special events disrupt regular bus service. Mr. Thornton added that maybe some CSAC members could go to a city council meeting to discuss this issue, but not act on behalf of CSAC or CMTA.

On this topic, Rene complimented bus operators for doing a good and safe job on Monday (May 2, 2005) during the parade at noon.

V. Mr. Barrera introduced the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system and informed CSAC attendees that they would be testing the system during the meeting. Mr. L’Amie introduced Ms. Schroter as the Technology Project Manager and a lead person on the IVR project. Mr. L’Amie explained that the IVR system was a system where a customer could speak to an automated voice that listens and responds to the customer. The IVR would serve as a supplement to the Customer Service team to provide other options to callers when they call for bus route information. Similar to how websites are tested, the purpose of April’s CSAC meeting was going to be designated as the time to test the IVR system to find out how people are using it and what their reactions are as a new user. Thirty minutes were allotted for the CSAC meeting attendees to test the system and fill out a questionnaire.

From 6:25 to 6:55 p.m. CSAC meeting attendees tested the IVR system

At 6:55 everyone reconvened and Mr. L’Amie commenced the focused group feedback session. The following information provided are the questions asked by Mr. L’Amie and/or Ms. Schroter and the responses received from the testers. Please note this is a summary transcript of what was said during the feedback session. This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Mr. L’Amie: Who liked it, based on what you experienced?

Audience: 4 raised their hands as a sign that they liked it.

Mr. L’Amie: Who didn’t (like it)?

Audience: 3 raised their hands as a sign that they did not like it.

Mr. L’Amie: What did you like about it?

Mr. Balaka: Despite arriving late, I was able to get pretty quickly to the bus schedule, and I was able to complete the tasks quickly.

Mr. Barrera: I was able to plan a trip fairly swiftly.

Mr. Ojeda: He liked that he would be able to get information 24 hours a day, but was frustrated because the system would not accept a well-known street that it was given.

Mr. Taylor: It was user friendly, and had quick responses. Yet, at times it was overcompensating with lane, blvd, street, etc. It would be helpful if it was more generic so all these would not be necessary. But in general, he liked it.

Ms. Taylor: From past experience in working for the post office, it does matter if the street is road, street, blvd, etc.

Mr. Barrera: Can it be prompted to do more popular streets first?

Ms. Schroter: No, there are 17,000 streets and all these streets would have to be evaluated to determine which is more popular.

Mr. L’Amie: What did you NOT like about it?

Mr. Ojeda: The system did not recognize Westgate as an intersection. After getting frustrated, I eventually gave up. Like 90% of the population, if after 3-5 tries one is not successful frustration sets in and causes people to give up.

Mr. L’Amie to Mr. Ojeda: Then what did you try?

Mr. Ojeda: I tried main menu and help.

Mr. L’Amie to Mr. Ojeda: How did you feel about what was going on?

Mr. Ojeda: I felt frustration, and that the system sucked. I wanted to “choke the person that was talking”. I thought “what kind of system is this”. I think people would make a negative judgment on Capital Metro. If the first interaction is a bad experience then they’ll have a negative judgment for a long time.

Mr. L’Amie: What do you a’ll think about those thoughts, about the damage this could do?

Ms. Espinoza: I agree.

Mr. Taylor: Your first perceptions are important.

Ms. Schroter: What intersection was that? I’d like to it out just to make sure there is not a bug in the system.

Mr. Ojeda: The Linnet and Westgate intersection was the intersection he was referring to.

Mr. Barrera: I agree that first impressions are lasting impressions. If you have a good experience, you will tell others about it. If you have a bad experience you are going to tell more than a handful of people about it.

Mr. L’Amie: So the idea is, once you’ve had a bad experience your going to tell others to not use Capital Metro’s IVR system. You are nodding your head, what do you think, Colleen?

Ms. Stoll: I definitely would not recommend this to UT users. When I first tried ER, it didn’t recognize any of the two letter symbols for the UT shuttle. I had to go back and say Enfield Road, but there are two Enfield Roads. As a UT shuttle rider, I don’t know that the UT shuttle is 6062 or the #9. It also gave wrong information when I asked for the time one would come by later in the evening. It gave the times 7:30 until whenever we have regular ER, but it couldn’t tell me when the ER came at night because it didn’t. But as an ER rider, I should still be able to know that it’s combined at night and what the schedule would be at 9 o’clock.

Mr. L’Amie to Ms. Stoll: When you say it couldn’t tell you, what happened?

Ms. Stoll: It gave me the earlier times and the later times that it runs. I eventually backed out. Then I asked for Lake Austin, LA, and same thing, you couldn’t get it. I was impressed that when I said landmark, Colorado Apartments pulled up. That’s where a lot of UT shuttle students live. Some of the streets that it said when it was telling me where the nearest intersection was, I couldn’t understand when it was telling me Hern.

Mr. L’Amie to Ms. Stoll: What did it sound like?

Ms. Stoll: Hern was pronounced too fast on IVR.

Ms. Schroter: Some of these things I ask because I can tune them.

Ms. Espinoza: I said Lamar Blvd and the system did not recognize it. I was not impressed.

Mr. Barrera: When I gave a street name and it didn’t respond to it, I finally realized it wanted the direction (N, S, E, W) right after the street name. In other words, if you said S. Congress Avenue, it wouldn’t recognize that. It would recognize Congress and then South.

Mr. L’Amie: Who else noticed that?

Mr. Taylor: When you are looking up an address on the appraisal district website, you enter the street name first then the direction (N, S, E, Wand W).

Mr. L’Amie: What do you all think of that?

Mr. Barrera: It’s not intuitive to what we normally do every day. We say East Monroe Ave. We never say Avenue East. It’s going to be awkward to have people respond that way.

Mr. L’Amie: How would it be awkward?

Ms. Balch: I thought that it wanted me to tell it which direction I wanted to go. I wanted to arrive at Congress, but the street didn’t have an east or a west.

Ms. Taylor: When I was asked which direction I wanted to go in, I wanted to go from one part of South Congress to another part of South Congress so I pick up on what you all were talking about. Another concern was I found myself raising my volume at it. It couldn’t hear me, even though I could hear it. I hung up three times.

Ms. Schroter: Did it say I can’t hear you or I can’t understand you?

Ms. Taylor: I can’t understand you. What impressed me was that when it came on it told me what time it was. That’s a part of what I want to know, how long I have to wait for another bus or whether there are any buses left after a certain time.

Mr. L’Amie: Let’s talk about that (time feature). What did you think about the greeting? Did you like getting the time right at the beginning?

Audience: Everyone liked getting time at the beginning of the message. No one thought the introductory message was too long.

Mr. Balaka: When he went to ‘more options’, the ‘main menu’ wasn’t given and ‘back’ was not an option,

Ms. Schroter: ‘Start over’ and ‘repeat’ are options but not ‘back’.

Ms. Stoll: The option ‘back’ would come in handy if we would be able to go back just one level instead of having to start all over.

Mr. L’Amie: If we couldn’t change the naming convention function of N, S, E, or W, how much of a barrier would it be for people?

Mr. Barrera: It’s a matter of having to adapt to the new system.

Mr. L’Amie: [Do you think it ] wWould it it be worth it to the public to learn the system?

Ms. Stoll: I think you can learn that.

Audience: There was a lengthy discussion about the naming convention of the streets in the system because it would not recognize street names such as Westgate or East 5^th due to the cardinal direction being in the first part of the name. Most agreed that it was a problem that had to be addressed.

Mr. L’Amie: Would you use the system on a regular basis or recommend it to your friend?

Mr. Barrera: Not yet, because of the name configurations being kicked back by the system.

Audience: Everyone agreed that the system was still not ready to be launched during the day or recommended to friends.

Mr. L’Amie: Should we launch this after-hours even though it’s not ready?

Audience: Five out of eight people agreed that after-hours it was okay to launch the IVR system in its current state.

Mr. Ojeda: We might just want to stick to block such as 2200 instead of saying 2222 so it won’t confuse it with the road FM 2222.

Mr. L’Amie: Should we turn off certain features and have IVR ask if they would rather want to go by intersection or landmark? Would this get around the address problem?

Ms. Stoll: I was frustrated because Sixth Street, ABIA, and Airport landmarks were not recognized.

Ms. Schroter: If you have Mr. Walker’s email, go ahead and email him some of those landmarks because we have 2,200 landmarks.

Mr. Balaka: I felt that interrupting it slowed it down because I had to repeat what I said.

Ms. Schroter: You should be able to interrupt it almost at any time.

Mr. L’Amie: Who requested a bus schedule?

Ms. Espinoza: I tried twice and was unsuccessful.

Ms. Taylor: I asked for a bus schedule for #37. I requested it six times, gave up, tried #101 and gave up again.

Ms. Stoll: It worked well for #29 and #101 but not ER or other shuttles.

Ms. Schroter: It should recognize ER and LA. What would be helpful for me,me is to know the different ways people say the routes so I can program that into the IVR.

Mr. Barrera: The IVR system understood one-oh-one to mean 1-0 (zero)-1 and repeated one-zero-one for me.

Mr. L’Amie: Who tried requesting bus stop times at location?

Audience: Everyone tried and liked it.

Mr. L’Amie: Who planned a trip?

Ms. Espinoza: It worked fine, there were no problems. I started from my home using the intersection going to the N. Lamar Transit Center. It gave me accurate information.

Ms. Stoll: I planned a trip from UT to Airport, and it went well. The only hitch was that the IVR system did not tell me the nearest stop that I would have chosen.

Mr. Barrera: I used fastest trip, St. Edwards and UT landmarks to plan my trip and it gave me #1 and Congress at Woodward and Guadalupe and 24^th. I was confused when it gave me an itinerary #. I didn’t get the fastest route.

Mr. L’Amie: Who else got an itinerary number?

Mr. Barrera and Ms. Balch: Both got one but they did not understand that this meant there were other itineraries available. During the testing they both discounted this portion of the message.

Audience: The message with the “Trip itinerary #” was not understood by the users. They thought it would be better if it said, “Option #1”.

Ms. Schroter: Would you like to be able to change your mind in the middle of the message able be able to ask the IVR for a different option. For example, if you initially asked for the shortest walking distance would you like to be able to change your mind in the middle of the message and ask for the fastest trip without having to start all over?

Ms. Stoll: It would be better to have it automatically list other options such as shortest walking distance after it gives you the itinerary you asked for. (Ms. Schroter liked this idea.

Mr. L’Amie: What are some other options that were tried?

Mr. Barrera: I tried Lost and Found and was successful.

Mr. L’Amie: What are the 3 most important functions?

Audience: Trip planning, bus stop times, and availability of the system, particularly late at night.

Mr. L’Amie: How do you think most customers plan their trips right now?

Audience: They call and talk to a live person or they use the bus schedule.

Ms. Stoll: UT students use the bus stop times the most. This frightens her because they are so oftentimes wrong

Mr. L’Amie: Rate following customer-service oriented services: 10 best – 1 worst.

Schedule book –10, 10, 8, 8, 4, 4

Bus system map – 2, 2, 5, 10-can download map, 5, 2

Pocket schedules – 8 all around

Live customer service representatives – 10, 10, 8, 7, 10

Website planning function – not enough users

Website maps and schedules – 0 for UT, 8, 10

IVR system – 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 but optimistic!

Mr. Walker: How can we get customers to go to IVR system during the day? Would it be better to a) give a message during hold time to prompt people to use IVR during peak call hours or b) give people the option to use IVR at the beginning of the call.

Audience: The general consensus was to wait till we can WOW everyone.

Ms. Schroter reported that the system could be fine-tuned based on recordings and if anyone wanted to contribute 20-30 minutes to record with their voice to let Mr. Walker know. Mr. L’Amie added that a beta test might be conducted in the future.

VI. Mr. Walker and Mr. Barrera thanked Mr. L’Amie and Ms. Schroter for giving a presentation on the IVR system. Subcommittee reports were tabled until next month’s meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM