Customer Satisfaction Essay

IntroductionThe quest to pecker customer happiness is essential for any organization. stir up understands the importance of building and effectively managing the relationship with riders. To do so it needs to understand and meet rider expectations. It is exacting to identify the parameters which cause customer contentment or dissatisfaction and continuously barroom them to bring about the changes needed on the basis of customer perceptions.ObjectivesThe original objective of the Customer Satisfaction muckle is to retard satisfaction levels of interrupt Express riders. Secondary objectives atomic number 18 to determine ridership demographics, price sensitivity, what marketing transmit is stovepipe to target respondents, the level of satisfaction on specific single-valued function attributes, and determine ways fate can improve services. Determining ridership demographics forget aid secernate in understanding its current customers, as advant long timeously as identif ying target markets. Understanding which marketing channel works best to gain riders provide give partitioning an indication of where to focus strategical marketing efforts. Attribute levels will break down each divisor of the sectionalisation experience and each(prenominal)ow respondents to rate each task, giving slender data beneficial for improving customer satisfaction.Methodology trigger targeted actual Express riders for the customer satisfaction sketch. Surveys were distributed to all Express routes, whiles email list, Facebook, Twitter, as well as posted on the homepage of the sectionalisation website designated to capture a demographic mix of respondents. 530 completed cartoons were received and analyzed. Respondents are estimated to be roughly 50% of ridership and constitute an adequate survey precedent size. The survey consisted of 19 questions, formatted as open ended, 5 point Likert Scale, sanctioned demographics, and numerical questions (Appendix A).Resp ondent ProfileBased on the demographic information received on the survey, it has been concluded that 60.5% of respondents were female and 39.4% male (Figure 1). The prevalent age range, at 26.9% was 55-64 years old (Figure 1). 72.2% of the respondents answered full time for their employment status, 21.5% and chose $30,000$44,999 as their annual income (Figure 3). When asked which best describes your race? respondents answered 61.6% White, 31.3% Black, and 7.1% Other (Figure 2). Based on the unrestricted question of Where do youwork, 418 determined the top 5 largest employers. Baptist infirmary was the largest with 93 responses, Wells Fargo, UNCG, and GTCC were second with 14 responses each, Forsyth Medical Center and BB&T were third with 10 responses, Forsyth Tech Community College was fourth with 8 responses, Moses cone and Tyco both came in fifth with 7 responses (Figure 2).FindingsWhen respondents were asked to Rate your level of satisfaction with carve up, 92.4% responded So mewhat to Highly Satisfied. 4.5% were Neutral, 2.2% responded Dissatisfied and slight than 1% were very Dissatisfied (Figure 3). When asked How long have you used PART services? 22.8% answered less than 6 months, 13.5% answered 6 months to 1 year, 32% answered 1 to 3 years, 23.3% answered 3 to 5 years, and 8.1% answered 5 years or more (Figure 4). 56.7% of the respondents stated that they rode PART every day (Figure 5). The Routes which showed highest were Surry Express with 32.8% ridership, Greensboro Express with 30% ridership and Winston-Salem Express with 28.3% ridership (Figure 6).To determine price sensitivity a few new questions about fares were added to the survey this year. When asked If you drove to work each day, how much would it cost? 29.6% of respondents answered $15.00-$30.00. This was calculated by multiplying the daily round trip miles by 51 cents. The average PART rider saves $5,850 per year by riding. (Avg. Cost $22.50 times 260 work geezerhood per year) Of th e 530 respondents 77.7% responded that $2.40 One-Way/$74.50 31-Day Pass was a fair price to ride PART Express (Figure 9). Nearly half of the respondents felt that they received a entire value for the cost of the service (Figure 10).An attribute table was used to measure the satisfaction level of PART Express riders from the following categories customer service, professionalism, tint of transportation, understanding customers needs, bus operator performance, PART Hub staff performance, price, and convenience of transportation. These attributes appear to be going down in satisfaction rating since subsist year. (Figure 7).To help identify the best channel for reaching new PART Express riders, respondents were asked Which PART marketing tools have you seen/heard? TV Commercials surpassed all other channels with 63.7%, the Email Messages was second highest with 42.8%, and 35.6% of respondents heard about PART through Billboards (Figure 8). When asked What is the best way to communic ate with you? respondents requested that Email Messages and Flyers privileged the buses was the best way to reach them (Figure10).RecommendationsPART will review survey responses and categorize results to distribute to appropriate departments for further examination. After reviewing survey responses, areas of onward motion will be identified.With demographic information attained about PART Express riders, it is recommended that the results be used by the Marketing department to bring up PART services to retain current riders, and to acquire potential riders. A demographic profile of the PART typical rider has been determined and should be used as a reference for marketing purposes, to determine the characteristics and interests of the bulk of current PART Express Riders.Many route, schedule and service recommendations were suggested and will be reviewed. From these suggestions PART should determine if changes suggested, are necessary and need to be made to existing routes. Potent ial areas that are not currently served need to be examined to see if there is potential ridership available. The Customer Satisfaction Survey will be conducted once per year during the fourth quarter of the PART fiscal year. Results to this survey will be publicized on the PART website and in a press release to the media.