CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

The ACT Quality System

To effectively improve the quality of the transit system and compete on the deregulated public mobility market, ACT and its associated companies are upgrading the entire organizational and operational system to better define and implement our industrial strategies and procedures .

ACT is dedicated to raising the quality standards of our services by renewing and improving both our infrastructure and our methods. By establishing and monitoring standards for each of our services, based on the production capacity of the Company as well as on periodic customer surveys, we can finetune our services to the specific needs of our clients.

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Surveys Measuring Quality

Customer relations and measureable user satisfaction are critical operational elements for any company that provides public services. Based on the assumption that mobililty services constitute a basic need in today's society, ACT conducts annual customer satisfaction surveys to document our clients' opinions of our services and to solicit suggestions and advice.

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ACT Customer Satisfaction Survey

ACT's annual surveys, prepared and performed by specialized firms, involve the use of a precise questionnaire in a wide-spread interview campaign, both over the telephone and in person. In terms of sex, age, residency, and numerical quantity, the sample is broad enough to accurate reflect our target population in the Reggio area with an extremely small margin of error.

Once again, user opinions on public transit services over road and rail in Reggio Emilia and its province remained positive in 2007: that is the principal result of the customer satisfaction survey carried out by Customer Asset Improvment (CAI) in Reggio Emilia from the 3rd to 20th November 2008. Commissioned by ACT, the survey comprised 950 telephone interviews taken by CATI (Computer Assisted Telephony Interview) on a representative sample of pass holders. These interviews were supplemented by 600 face-to-face encounters with occasional users (not pass holders) at important stops on city, out-of-town and railway lines across Reggio Emilia.

The level of satisfaction of ACT customers, as expressed by the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), is 74.7/100. This figure can be termed “very positive” and is slightly less than the market standard for public transport in Emilia Romagna (76.8). The statistic has shown a constant trend toward improvement in user satisfaction over the past three years (2006-2007-2008).

The CSI is an “average” indicator that is based not only on judgments expressed by customers regarding individual factors affecting their relationship with ACT, but also on the importance of these factors to each customer.

As in previous years, ACT customer satisfaction in 2008 was determined by analyzing 17 factors. For each factor, customers were asked whether the service provided by ACT met their expectations, since a customer is “satisfied” if he receives a service that meets (or exceeds) his expectations and is “dissatisfied” if his expectations are not met.

The methodology used was that recommended by UNI (the Quality Certification Standards organization), which issued specific regulations (no. 11098/2003) on how to measure customer satisfaction.

Working with Customer Asset Improvment-CAI (formerly the Market Research Division at Databank),, ACT adopted this new methodology in 2005 and has worked to transform the precise statistical information in improved services. The same methodology was also used by the Emilia Romagna region in a Databank survey to determine citizens’ opinions on regional public transportation.

The most striking results of the ACT customer analysis indicate that the overall Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) is higher among pass holders than among occasional users. This situation shows that ACT succeeds to a greater extent in meeting the expectations of its “ongoing” customers who use public transit more frequently.

The highest satisfaction index (a CSI of 87.4) was documented among rail service users ; a much higher proportion than the regional figure (66.1).

The least satisfied ACT customers were users of the out-of-town service (81.1) and the city service (82.9)c. Among city lines, Line 13 and 1 had the lowest CSI (78.3), while services such as Line 8 and 10, Minibù E, G, H had sharply higher-than-average values.

Users of the out-of-town service expressed a level of satisfaction that was halfway between the two extremes described above; its CSI of 78.6 was in line with the corresponding regional figure (78.7).

Detailed analysis of ACT customer satisfaction for each type of service, as well as the individual factors under evaluation, provides interesting results.

Rail service

Rail service customer satisfaction exceeded 90% in many areas; those with the greatest degree of satisfaction (where ACT exceeded corresponding regional levels) included:

• the skill of drivers or engine-drivers
• overall accessibility
• convenient stops and connections
• speed of travel
• courtesy, good manners and appearance of personnel

On the other hand, ACT should pay greater attention to the following factors as sources of dissatisfaction:

• crowded vehicles
• insufficient cleanliness of the vehicles

Out-of-town service

The strong points of the out-of-town service provided by ACT were:

• the skill of the drivers
• convenient stops and connections
• the courtesy, manners and appearance of personnel

Customers were less satisfied with factors such as:

• crowded vehicles;
• insufficient cleanliness of the vehicles and infrastructures
• inadequate frequency of service

City service

Positive opinions on the ACT's city service offered by ACT mostly regarded four areas:

• the simplicity of acquiring tickets and passes
• convenient stops and connections
• overall accessibility
• the dissemination and clarity of basic information on the service

To significantly improve its performance, ACT will need to assign higher priority to taking action on the following sources of dissatisfaction:

• crowded vehicles
• insufficient cleanliness of the vehicles and infrastructures
• late and unreliable services
• inadequate frequency of service

As compared with the data from previous years, the 2008 survey almost always reveals that urban service has clearly improved, in users' opinions.

A similar situation - albeit less pronounced - emerges for the rail service.

For out-of-town service, however, the situation is quite fragmentary and shows no clear-cut trend.

As compared with 2007, another important distinguishing factor emerges: the satisfaction of occasional users increased significantly in 2008 and even exceeded that of pass holders, thus strengthening a trend that already was revealed in the previous survey. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for this great improvement is enhancement of the "Minibù" urban service.