Mystery Shoppers Go Underground

Hong Kong, Madrid and Singapore are among the best cities for underground train travel, while New York and Paris are friendly but otherwise lagging behind, according to Présence Mystery Shopping. The quality of the welcome and service was measured from the perspective of foreign tourists in 12 cities, with London not included.

Last year the French agency published a survey concerning the attractiveness, welcome and service offered in 17 of the most prestigious avenues in the world. This year its shoppers braved scowling staff and 'foul smells' in visits to around 720 stations, buying tickets and travelling on lines with stations for tourist attractions, following a pre-defined scenario.

The main points tested were: the station environment (cleanliness, state of repair of automatic ticket machines, emptied rubbish bins, etc.), the way in which the tourist was welcomed by the staff (politeness, etc.), the train environment (cleanliness, state of the seats, etc.), and customer information (reply to a simple question in the tourist's language, an announcement informing passengers of the train's arrival, etc.).

Paris and Amsterdam were the only stations not to appear in the top 3 for any aspect.

[graphic of table]

* in Hong Kong no ticket counter contact was possible as stations only have automatic ticket machines.

Among the findings, Présence notes of its home country's capital that 'the Paris metro does not stand out for the cleanliness of its stations that serve the main tourist attractions' but adds that 'Contrary to popular belief, the staff do quite well in speaking a foreign language to answer simple requests for information.' In Berlin, platforms were also dirty (40% of visits), but not especially smelly, whereas 'the smell in the underground was frequently off-putting, especially in the trains of Paris, Lisbon or Rome, an exception being the New York subway.' All the automatic ticket machines in Hong Kong 'were clean and in perfect working order' whereas in Rome and Berlin, ticket machines were out of order and visitors required to queue up at the ticket counter.

Hong Kong scores well on safety, while in Rome, 'the staff look at the customer and say 'hello' in 100% of cases and smile at them in 75% of cases'. Présence says the 'prize for the worst welcome' goes to Singapore and Beijing where none of its investigators were offered a greeting, or given a smile. 'On the other hand,' notes the report, 'once the ticket had been paid for, they were the only ones to thank 100% of their customers for the purchase.'

Beijing is praised for station announcements, and Amsterdam for staff answering customer questions in their own language, while Singapore's staff gave enquiring shoppers a distinctly cold shoulder.

Présence is the quality research division of Topo Marketing Group and is located in Paris, with 1,500 mystery shoppers. It is online at www.presence.fr .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.