First Great Eastern Railways Putting its Passengers First

First Great Eastern Railways (FGER) is currently expanding its continuous customer satisfaction programme through use of advanced regression analysis techniques to discover how it can best improve customer satisfaction by managing those elements of the FGER passenger's journey which are directly under the company's control. ORC International, has been conducting FGER's customer satisfaction programme since January 2000, and has now been commissioned to design the "FGER Customer Satisfaction Predictive Model."

FGER's focus on improving customer satisfaction is as a result of the Hatfield and Selby rail accidents that took place in 2000, since when the UK's rail industry has been facing unprecedented difficulties in restoring performance and customer satisfaction.

The new model takes results from the customer satisfaction work and allows FGER management to simulate the overall effect on customer satisfaction of increasing satisfaction on a given attribute; for example, cleanliness of trains or information at stations. This finding then focuses the management activity plans which are directed by FGER's Quality Executive committee.

According to Pete Northfield from FGER "As well as fulfilling the requirements of the SRA and the Passenger's Charter, customer satisfaction monitoring is also essential to our business planning and development. It enables us to maintain market share and create a service that meets the needs of our customers. FGER currently carries 48 million passengers each year and it is therefore essential that we identify areas for improvement which are going to produce the most benefit for them. One of our current targets is to attract more people to our trains; especially at off-peak times. We believe that increasing passenger numbers can only be achieved by identifying where our clients are expecting improvement."

FGER's customer satisfaction survey is conducted over 13 four week periods, when an annual total of 25,450 paper-based questionnaires are handed out on station concourses. Current response rate is around 40%.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.