BFMS survey shows MATA's new phone system may hurt service

A customer making a typical call to MATAplus is on hold more than ten times longer than the average hold time experienced by a customer calling for fixed-route bus information (40.8 seconds versus 434 seconds). - Barrier Free Memphis Society (BFMS) survey finding.

BFMS has just completed a survey of hold times experienced by Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) customers. MATA has been reprimanded for poor phone service by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which found in August of 2000 that MATA's phone procedures were understaffed, stressful, caused miscommunication and produced a high chance for errors. The FTA asked MATA for consistent reports on meeting some service criteria including phone service.

The FTA reviewed 100 calls to MATAplus and observed "35 were answered and served without being put on hold. Forty-four calls were answered and put on hold. ...The longest hold time observed was 7.5 minutes [FTA Summary of Observations, Aug. 1, 2000 p. 10]." The remaining 21 calls the FTA observed where handled by voicemail and most likely not dealt with in a timely way.

MATA has reported to the FTA that since the observations they have "installed a new telephone system with a central queue for all incoming calls for the MATAplus reservations." And "voicemail is only activated when the MATAplus office is closed." MATA's reports to the FTA generally imply that the new system has solved the poor service observed by the FTA; but MATA has not undertaken a reasonable method to gage customer service.

MATA's Response to the FTA observations claim that the "...new telephone system for the MATAplus Department ...includes a real-time call monitoring capability which allows the MATAplus Operations Manager to monitor the number of callers on hold and the maximum hold time [FTA Summary, Attachment 4 p. 2]." The MATA telephone capacity reports; however, do not list either a maximum hold time or an average hold time. 

MATA's quarterly report to the FTA for October 1, through December 31, 2001 instead describes, "average speed answered" which can be misleading because a caller may be put on hold again once their call is answered. The BFMS survey asked callers to report the total hold time they encountered on a call to MATAplus, not simply the speed that the call was answered. The survey found that 22% of calls to MATAplus had multiple hold times.

Most notably about the MATA report was that a large number of calls are reported "abandoned". These are calls where the customer hangs up before MATA answers the call. The FTA observations in 2000 found that 30% of observed calls were abandoned (21% of the calls were dispersed to voicemail and 9% on hold never got through to MATA). 

The new MATA procedure eliminated the discarding of calls to voicemail increasing the number of calls that are on hold in the central queue to be routed "to the next available reservationist [FTA Summary, Attachment 4 p. 2]." Seemingly, MATA's new phone system has expanded the amount of "on hold" service without increasing the capacity to serve citizens.

The recent MATA report finds that more than one in three of all calls (38%) are abandoned, and over half of the customers calling for reservations never get through (60.3%). The average time before a call for a reservation was abandoned on hold during the FTA observations was 2 minutes 18 seconds. Currently MATA reports reservation calls are abandoned after 6 minutes and 18 seconds, over two and a half times longer than two years ago.

MATAplus, the service that provides accessible transportation for riders unable to use the fixed-route, is required to provide service that is comparable to the main-line (fixed-route) system. Riders of MATAplus continue to report long hold times, some of more than an hour. Long hold times can be encouraged by the new queue system which warns that hanging up may delay your call. BFMS undertook the survey to examine one aspect of customer service, not the accuracy and performance of the new phone system, which are reported advantages of the MATA phone system.

The BFMS survey made 55 typical calls to MATAplus and 25 to the fixed-route information line to compare service. The average hold time for a MATAplus customer was 5 minutes and 34 seconds. Because a customer may be put on hold several times on a single call, the survey also found that the average hold time of a MATAplus customer for each call was 7 minutes and 14 seconds. The average time on hold calling the fixed-route information line was 41 seconds.

The FTA observations of the previous phone system found that 35% of the calls answered and served without being put on hold; however, BFMS found that with the current system only 9% (5 calls) had no hold time. Comparatively, the fixed-route information system responded to nearly half of the calls (48%) with less than 20 seconds of hold time.

MATA's poor phone service is not limited to hold times. Last week, Tim Wheat and Sam Ware called the MATA complaint line allowing the phone to ring more than 250 times before a MATA agent answered. MATA lists two different numbers for complaints in the phonebook. On page 108 of the BellSouth Real Yellow pages, and page 134 of The Real White Pages you will find the number 722-7190. This number is currently out of service and has not been the MATA complaint number for approximately four years.

The sole listing "MATA" on page 104 of the Yellow Pages gives citizens the wrong number. Last year, on January 26, 2001, Alison Burton wrote a customer complaining about the errant listing, that MATA has "made every effort to ensure this is not repeated..." Yet, the incorrect listing remains despite "every effort" of MATA.

"I don't know if Memphis taxpayers are paying the bill for the erroneous [phonebook] listings," said one of the people who complained about the incorrect number, "but I am sure we are all paying dearly for the bungling administration of our bus system."

- Tim Wheat

Link to detail of BFMS survey data.