Thursday, October 23, 2008

Metro Customer Relations



Let's get personal.

I had an incident this morning involving a negligent bus operator who bypassed me - after making eye contact and almost hitting me while I was waiting for him to slow down, no less, continuing to make his way down the street. Rather unfortunately, I ended up being fifteen minutes late to work. I felt seriously burned, until I remembered that Metro has a Customer Relations line (1-800-464-2111, available from 8:00 am - 4:15 pm) for one to make known virtually anything about their commuting experience, as well as an email address (CustomerRelations@metro.net). One thing I didn't know, however, is that "for safety purposes" the representatives will not address issues while you're on a bus of any kind, at any time of day or night - no matter who the driver. Even if it's a different one than the driver you're upset with, as I was this morning. Reasonable; aggravating while in the moment, but understandable and therefore good to know.

I don't mean to come down on any operator in any avenue of customer service. I myself am one. But this experience has truly shown me the value of good customer service - even if it's as basic as not dismissing the customer. I never used to wonder why patrons would say "thank you" or "have a good day" to bus drivers while exiting at their stop, but again - this experience has cemented why it's important (if not imperative) to thank where necessary. Life and all the seemingly insignificant things in it are made seamless by all those who actually contribute - aka do their jobs - accordingly. Ourselves included.

Just some food for thought.

Soon to come: directions to upcoming events, places to go, hangout & eat soon!


Photo via Metro.net

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Today is Nov. 2nd, 2009. All you write about on transit tv is mexican this, aztec this and spanish this. You do not write anything about the Native Peoples of the United States of America, just mexico. Some of you spanish speaking peoples are very racist. You only think of your own peoples like the organization called mecha. "for the race everything, outside the race, nothing". That is who you peoples are!!!!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

The bus line #607, is very helpful.
It gives us the way to go into Inglewood and back quickly. I am an elderly, disabled person, and this gives me and others of my condition an easy, comfortable way to get to Kaiser Inglewood, and other places quickly and safely with out having to walk for blocks to get to trans-
portation. The only thing that would make it better is if there were posted stops at 60th and West Blvd. and Hydepark and west Blvd.

Carlene said...

Good customer service will always make sure that the customers will always come back for your product or service. In this case, it's riding their bus. Pretty much like a computer networking support hotline, they should always make sure that the customer is satisfied after the call, or is updated with the issue some time after if the issue would take time resolving. About the e-mail, let's say if it's an online IT support, the answers have to come as soon as possible. Receiving a prompt that they've received your query is already considered as making sure that the mail was received.