Having worked in customer service for many years, your post is bang on. The job entails customer service; bring it.
Forget for a second that you're a bus driver. The tales you relate could be said of any customer service job. I have seen workers at a fast food restaurant give a homeless man an entire meal for the price of the french fries. I have even seen department store managers give steep discounts on clothing to people who obviously appeared to be hard up. There are good people in customer service everywhere just as there are bad ones.
The difference, however, is what happens when people in customer service positions get bad customers. That's the real test of your mettle and your much vaunted "service". For those other employees, they can't yell or argue back. Heck, they aren't even allowed to be rude back. But on the TTC, you get drivers and collectors who are rude for absolutely no reason at all. How is it my problem if you got a rude customer before me? McDonald's would not tolerate such behaviour from its employees. How long would they stay in business if they're employees were merely indifferent, let alone outright rude? Now why should taxpayers tolerate such behaviour from even a single TTC operator who's paid a specific wage premium exactly because he/she has to put up with crap from misbehaving members of the public. There's a reason why a TTC collector makes 3 times what a Walmart cashier makes and has half the workload or why TTC bus drivers make double what school bus drivers make. With that premium I don't want excuses about how you're jaded because you have to put up with bad customers. You are being paid more than fair compensation to deal with that crap.
If there are employees that stay perpetually "bitter", I'd suggest that they are not a good fit at the TTC, and particularly in a position where they are dealing with the public. Keep in mind that the TTC is not just important to residents, it is vital to the public image of the city. For a lot of tourists, sometimes the first and last interaction they have with this city are with TTC employees. Being rude or apathetic, even if it's 1% of the workforce can be devastating to our public image. You are supposed to be an ambassador of this city. I really don't care if you're having a bad day. Suck it up. You're job is as much to always have a smile on, as it is to drive a bus. That's what being in customer service industry is all about. And that's what even most genuinely nice TTC employees fail to comprehend sometimes.
Forget for a second that you're a bus driver. The tales you relate could be said of any customer service job. I have seen workers at a fast food restaurant give a homeless man an entire meal for the price of the french fries. I have even seen department store managers give steep discounts on clothing to people who obviously appeared to be hard up. There are good people in customer service everywhere just as there are bad ones.
The difference, however, is what happens when people in customer service positions get bad customers. That's the real test of your mettle and your much vaunted "service". For those other employees, they can't yell or argue back. Heck, they aren't even allowed to be rude back. But on the TTC, you get drivers and collectors who are rude for absolutely no reason at all. How is it my problem if you got a rude customer before me? McDonald's would not tolerate such behaviour from its employees. How long would they stay in business if they're employees were merely indifferent, let alone outright rude? Now why should taxpayers tolerate such behaviour from even a single TTC operator who's paid a specific wage premium exactly because he/she has to put up with crap from misbehaving members of the public. There's a reason why a TTC collector makes 3 times what a Walmart cashier makes and has half the workload or why TTC bus drivers make double what school bus drivers make. With that premium I don't want excuses about how you're jaded because you have to put up with bad customers. You are being paid more than fair compensation to deal with that crap.
If there are employees that stay perpetually "bitter", I'd suggest that they are not a good fit at the TTC, and particularly in a position where they are dealing with the public. Keep in mind that the TTC is not just important to residents, it is vital to the public image of the city. For a lot of tourists, sometimes the first and last interaction they have with this city are with TTC employees. Being rude or apathetic, even if it's 1% of the workforce can be devastating to our public image. You are supposed to be an ambassador of this city. I really don't care if you're having a bad day. Suck it up. You're job is as much to always have a smile on, as it is to drive a bus. That's what being in customer service industry is all about. And that's what even most genuinely nice TTC employees fail to comprehend sometimes.
Comparing the service you receive at McDonald’s and the TTC is simply bizarre. McDonald’s cashier’s are paid/trained to provide a good service and McDonald’s charge you, as a customer, a cost plus its premium for the service that you receive. If similar cost + premiums are charged to TTC passengers for better customer service by their operators and collectors, then you as a transit raider will be paying much more than you are now and the tax burdens that the TTC place on the society as a whole will increase accordingly.
And if the TTC start providing customer service on top of simply providing transportation, then it would not be fulfilling its mandate, which should be to provide efficient transit with adequate coverage at the lowest cost possible. And don’t anyone complain on how poor TTC’s service/coverage/effeciency is, because it is much better than any other part of Ontario and better or on par with any other city in North America taking population density into consideration.
I respectfully disagree. TTC employees do not have to treat their passengers like a posh apparel shop treats its customers, but some basic customer service skills and attitude should be part of their job. It costs very little, if anything, in monetary terms. If some members of the workforce do not accept that, they should look for another career.
I am a taxpayer and voter, and I will never vote for a municipal or provincial politician who says "public transit has nothing to do with customer service, but the government will subsidize their operations nevertheless".
It's not either-or. The streetcar is a capital budget issue. The smile is a matter of more attention to personality in hiring, appropriate training, enablement and respect for staff by managers, and lots of attention to detail.Between a new street car and a thousand smiles, i'll opt for that streetcar. But you're welcome to go for the smile.
You sound like you have had nothing but bad experiences on the TTC daily.
Can I ask you, when was a TTC employee rude to you for absolutely nothing? Did he just barge up to your face out of no where and tell you to F off?![]()
True, the problem lies with only a minority of TTC staff, but there are enough of them to have done significant damage to the TTC's reputation with riders.
Exactly. This is what people don't understand. For a customer service organization, even 1% of the staff misbehaving is too much. And I'd venture to say there are far more than 1% of its organization that are poor service providers.