If the TTC works to rule I will be...

[PinkLucy]

Having worked in customer service for many years, your post is bang on. The job entails customer service; bring it.

 

[kandaman]

Forget for a second that you're a bus driver. The tales you relate could be said of any customer service job. I have seen workers at a fast food restaurant give a homeless man an entire meal for the price of the french fries. I have even seen department store managers give steep discounts on clothing to people who obviously appeared to be hard up. There are good people in customer service everywhere just as there are bad ones.

The difference, however, is what happens when people in customer service positions get bad customers. That's the real test of your mettle and your much vaunted "service". For those other employees, they can't yell or argue back. Heck, they aren't even allowed to be rude back. But on the TTC, you get drivers and collectors who are rude for absolutely no reason at all. How is it my problem if you got a rude customer before me? McDonald's would not tolerate such behaviour from its employees. How long would they stay in business if they're employees were merely indifferent, let alone outright rude? Now why should taxpayers tolerate such behaviour from even a single TTC operator who's paid a specific wage premium exactly because he/she has to put up with crap from misbehaving members of the public. There's a reason why a TTC collector makes 3 times what a Walmart cashier makes and has half the workload or why TTC bus drivers make double what school bus drivers make. With that premium I don't want excuses about how you're jaded because you have to put up with bad customers. You are being paid more than fair compensation to deal with that crap.


If there are employees that stay perpetually "bitter", I'd suggest that they are not a good fit at the TTC, and particularly in a position where they are dealing with the public. Keep in mind that the TTC is not just important to residents, it is vital to the public image of the city. For a lot of tourists, sometimes the first and last interaction they have with this city are with TTC employees. Being rude or apathetic, even if it's 1% of the workforce can be devastating to our public image. You are supposed to be an ambassador of this city. I really don't care if you're having a bad day. Suck it up. You're job is as much to always have a smile on, as it is to drive a bus. That's what being in customer service industry is all about. And that's what even most genuinely nice TTC employees fail to comprehend sometimes.

A drivers main job is to go from A to B safely. Everything else is secondary. I rather he drive the bus safely so I can get home in one piece rather ponder the merits of his CS abilities. Not saying CS is not important, it obviously is. However; safe operation takes priority over everything else. From my experience, 97% of the people who ride my bus want nothing more than a safe ride home not if I put onions in their burger. If you have a question ill do my best to answer it but I dont know everything and people have gotten upset and yelled at me for things I have no control over. However; like you said, we get paid 3x more than some said places so its ok for us to be an emotional/physical punching bag and its human nature to keep a smile on your face when your hurting inside. Theres a reason why McD stop advertising "service with a smile." Most of us try to do our jobs as best as we can but there will always be and I mean always be off days and that goes for any job. We're humans not robots.

You sound like you have had nothing but bad experiences on the TTC daily.

Can I ask you, when was a TTC employee rude to you for absolutely nothing? Did he just barge up to your face out of no where and tell you to F off?

 

[UD2]

Forget for a second that you're a bus driver. The tales you relate could be said of any customer service job. I have seen workers at a fast food restaurant give a homeless man an entire meal for the price of the french fries. I have even seen department store managers give steep discounts on clothing to people who obviously appeared to be hard up. There are good people in customer service everywhere just as there are bad ones.

The difference, however, is what happens when people in customer service positions get bad customers. That's the real test of your mettle and your much vaunted "service". For those other employees, they can't yell or argue back. Heck, they aren't even allowed to be rude back. But on the TTC, you get drivers and collectors who are rude for absolutely no reason at all. How is it my problem if you got a rude customer before me? McDonald's would not tolerate such behaviour from its employees. How long would they stay in business if they're employees were merely indifferent, let alone outright rude? Now why should taxpayers tolerate such behaviour from even a single TTC operator who's paid a specific wage premium exactly because he/she has to put up with crap from misbehaving members of the public. There's a reason why a TTC collector makes 3 times what a Walmart cashier makes and has half the workload or why TTC bus drivers make double what school bus drivers make. With that premium I don't want excuses about how you're jaded because you have to put up with bad customers. You are being paid more than fair compensation to deal with that crap.

If there are employees that stay perpetually "bitter", I'd suggest that they are not a good fit at the TTC, and particularly in a position where they are dealing with the public. Keep in mind that the TTC is not just important to residents, it is vital to the public image of the city. For a lot of tourists, sometimes the first and last interaction they have with this city are with TTC employees. Being rude or apathetic, even if it's 1% of the workforce can be devastating to our public image. You are supposed to be an ambassador of this city. I really don't care if you're having a bad day. Suck it up. You're job is as much to always have a smile on, as it is to drive a bus. That's what being in customer service industry is all about. And that's what even most genuinely nice TTC employees fail to comprehend sometimes.

With public transit, you're paying for your transportation from point A to point B and the driver's job is to drive you from point A to point B. When the driver is not driving, then he is not doing his job. If the driver is missing his schedule because he had to wait for that pretty girl with the pink hand bag, then he's not doing this job. If the driver is letting you on the bus without paying, then he's not doing this job.

But if the driver isn't greeting you with a smile and making the sun shine in a dark cloudy day, nobody could give a crap. He's not paid to make your day and if he is able to ruin your day by not saying hi and bye with shining white teeth, then you my friend have a problem and should be looking for some help.

Thing that everyone must remember is that TTC drivers are operators and ticket collectors, not customer service representatives. And we, as a tax/fare paying society are not paying them to become customer service representatives.

Comparing the service you receive at McDonald’s and the TTC is simply bizarre. McDonald’s cashier’s are paid/trained to provide a good service and McDonald’s charge you, as a customer, a cost plus its premium for the service that you receive. If similar cost + premiums are charged to TTC passengers for better customer service by their operators and collectors, then you as a transit raider will be paying much more than you are now and the tax burdens that the TTC place on the society as a whole will increase accordingly.

And if the TTC start providing customer service on top of simply providing transportation, then it would not be fulfilling its mandate, which should be to provide efficient transit with adequate coverage at the lowest cost possible. And don’t anyone complain on how poor TTC’s service/coverage/effeciency is, because it is much better than any other part of Ontario and better or on par with any other city in North America taking population density into consideration.

 

[Rainforest]

Comparing the service you receive at McDonald’s and the TTC is simply bizarre. McDonald’s cashier’s are paid/trained to provide a good service and McDonald’s charge you, as a customer, a cost plus its premium for the service that you receive. If similar cost + premiums are charged to TTC passengers for better customer service by their operators and collectors, then you as a transit raider will be paying much more than you are now and the tax burdens that the TTC place on the society as a whole will increase accordingly.

And if the TTC start providing customer service on top of simply providing transportation, then it would not be fulfilling its mandate, which should be to provide efficient transit with adequate coverage at the lowest cost possible. And don’t anyone complain on how poor TTC’s service/coverage/effeciency is, because it is much better than any other part of Ontario and better or on par with any other city in North America taking population density into consideration.

I respectfully disagree. TTC employees do not have to treat their passengers like a posh apparel shop treats its customers, but some basic customer service skills and attitude should be part of their job. It costs very little, if anything, in monetary terms. If some members of the workforce do not accept that, they should look for another career.

I am a taxpayer and voter, and I will never vote for a municipal or provincial politician who says "public transit has nothing to do with customer service, but the government will subsidize their operations nevertheless".

 

[UD2]

I respectfully disagree. TTC employees do not have to treat their passengers like a posh apparel shop treats its customers, but some basic customer service skills and attitude should be part of their job. It costs very little, if anything, in monetary terms. If some members of the workforce do not accept that, they should look for another career.

I am a taxpayer and voter, and I will never vote for a municipal or provincial politician who says "public transit has nothing to do with customer service, but the government will subsidize their operations nevertheless".

We're all allowed to vote for different people under different platforms. I personally will vote for the person who says that he/she will use every penny I pay to expand the transportation portion of public tranportation and leave all the other bells and whistles on the side of the parking lot.

Between a new street car and a thousand smiles, i'll opt for that streetcar. But you're welcome to go for the smile.

 

[kEiThZ]

kandaman and UD2,

This is the fundamental difference between your perception and the wider public's perception of what the TTC is and what the role of the TTC operator is supposed to be. You guys think the job is to get a rider from A to B with everything else secondary. I can assure you that the wider public does not think that's the case. The see the TTC as a service, even if it is a public service and to that end they expect TTC employees to conduct themselves with service to the customer in mind. This means that while getting a paying customer (not just a rider) from point A to point B is the most important thing, everything else is not as secondary as you guys would believe it to be.

I might also add that living in a globalized world, this city's citizenry does have exposure to transit systems throughout the country and throughout the world. They know when they are getting shortchanged. And they know when it's because of a funding problem (not enough frequencies for example) or when it's because of a lack of professionalism or a service-centred approach.

Personally, I would rather have what I saw in Munich, mostly automated stations with the few that were staffed, having real customer service staff (not uninterested injured personnel shilling tokens and passes). The staff had the appearance, professionalism and conduct of staff at an airline counter. And I am willing to bet that they get paid less than most of our ticket collectors here in Toronto.

As long as TTC employees see their job as delivering human cargo from point A to point B, the public is unlikely to be very sympathetic to their cause, keep that in mind. We aspire to be treated like paying customers, not just "freight that talks back."

 

[origin]

My point about "work to rule". I think they should all "work to rule" every day of their lives. Then if we decide the "rules" are not good (i.e. don't make sense), then they should be changed. I can never understand people that say workers should "break the rules" every day, and that "work to ruile" is not the norm. "work to rule" should be the norm. Then, make the changes to the ruies as need be.

Now, if you define "work to rule" as doing something stupid to make others lives miserable that is outside of the real rules, then those that take part in it should be disciplined.

 

[DavidH]

Between a new street car and a thousand smiles, i'll opt for that streetcar. But you're welcome to go for the smile.

It's not either-or. The streetcar is a capital budget issue. The smile is a matter of more attention to personality in hiring, appropriate training, enablement and respect for staff by managers, and lots of attention to detail.

And the two are more closely related than you think. If transit is to make inroads in attracting discretionary riders, quality customer service needs to be there. That doesn't necessarily mean a smile or a greeting at the door, but it does mean staff who are courteous rather than openly antagonistic towards their customers. True, the problem lies with only a minority of TTC staff, but there are enough of them to have done significant damage to the TTC's reputation with riders.

 

[kEiThZ]

You sound like you have had nothing but bad experiences on the TTC daily.

Can I ask you, when was a TTC employee rude to you for absolutely nothing? Did he just barge up to your face out of no where and tell you to F off?

Actually, I'd argue that most of my experience has been with apathetic personnel. A few have been exceptional. And some have been absolutely terrible. Though, in my experience, I'd actually say I've had more problems with ticket collectors than bus drivers.

My problem, however, is not with you or any one operator individually. I've been to a lot of places and I've seen how transit operates and I've seen how transit employees behave. I know there's room for improvement here. I don't want the TTC getting such a bad rap that people just start driving again. And I really think that both TTC management and employees really don't understand what the public view actually is about service quality on the TTC. I support the TTC, and that's exactly why I'm critical of it.

One thing that's always struck me, living in Ottawa lately, is how much better interaction with the bus drivers is, over here. You say that you can't say, "thank you" or "good bye" to every customer. Yet, I've routinely seen bus drivers in Ottawa who do that. Every friend I have who visits from Toronto comments on how much friendlier OC Transpo operators are. That doesn't take away from many of Ottawa's transit failings. But the fact that OC Transpo employees are decently friendly makes it much easier to put up with these incoveniences.

Now if Toronto could get a bus driver like one I had in Ottawa for a regular bus route I took there, who serenaded his passengers with Frank Sinatra and other oldies every morning (without using the mic), reviews would improve drastically! But you don't have to have a great voice to give good service.

 

[kEiThZ]

True, the problem lies with only a minority of TTC staff, but there are enough of them to have done significant damage to the TTC's reputation with riders.

Exactly. This is what people don't understand. For a customer service organization, even 1% of the staff misbehaving is too much. And I'd venture to say there are far more than 1% of its organization that are poor service providers.

 

[PinkLucy]

Exactly. This is what people don't understand. For a customer service organization, even 1% of the staff misbehaving is too much. And I'd venture to say there are far more than 1% of its organization that are poor service providers.

And so long as they think of their riders as freight, that's not going to get any better. Despite UD2's opinion that we're "riders", not "customers", we pay for the service and when you pay for something, that makes you a customer, whether it's a private business or a government service or whatever.

 

[UD2]

^^

It's ok for the public to ask for customer service from its transit, but the public must also be willing to bare the monetary cost for this.

that's my point.


And i perfectly understand and agree with Keithz's matter of public preception. However the public isn't always right, infact in most matters the general mass have a better chance of being wrong.

So the matter become, how do we allign the opinion of the general mass with the feasibility of a organization.


BTW.. this is the reason why we have so many useless politicians around who's better at talking than actaully getting things done. We the public made it this way.

 

[UD2]

BTW here is my point

The TTC Commission Mandate from its own website.

"The Commission serves the people of Toronto by ensuring your transit system is reliable, safe, and prepared for the future. To that end, we are responsible for planning and coordinating all TTC services; constructing, maintaining and operating the system; and expanding services and facilities where required."

We could get them to add to ensure your transit system is reliable, safe, prepared for the future and pleasent to ride on. But that's gonna cost us money. And if we Toronto are willing to bare this cost, then I'm sure it can happen.

And people will say, no I will ask for this and not pay anymore. But we all know it never really happens. Something will get cut somewhere to squeeze out the cash.

Unless ofcourse, the TTC union manage to un-exist it self, which would be pretty wonderful.

http://www3.ttc.ca/About_the_TTC/Commission_reports_and_information/index.jsp

 

[afransen]

I refuse to accept that pleasant customer service is something that would cost substantially more to provide. TTC workers are well-compensated already. If they cannot provide adequate customer service, perhaps we should look at contracting out operators to a private firm that is willing to guarantee an adequate level of customer service.

 

[kEiThZ]

^ Excellent point. There is no reason we can't contract out just operations (without privatizing the system), if we feel that the current crop of ATU members is not providing adequate service. We should even consider it, just as a cost-cutting measure. The union can always bid if they feel they can do the job to the satisfaction of residents.

It won't happen with a NDP mayor and and a NDP TTC Chair. But with the next council, you never know.